The family left the house in a disgusting state (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

A landlord was left with a £17,000 bill after tenants turned his property into a ‘drugs den’ infested by cockroaches and mice.

Travis Adams says the family of six left cigarette butts and dirty nappies strewn across the floor and a fridge full of rotten food.

The 34-year-old also thinks the family sought revenge on him for not renewing their lease by stealing copper pipes from the boiler and cutting the electrics at the property in Perth, Australia.

He said: ‘After I gave them notice that their lease wouldn’t be renewed, the tenants became unresponsive, unclean and began damaging the property – they had to go.


Rubbish was strewn throughout the house in Perth, Australia (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

The amount of rubbish left in the house filled a skip outside Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

The family wrecked the property (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

The family had four children (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

‘The Department of Child Protection also had visited the family numerous times.



‘The smell was so strong, I was in compete shock and totally numb.

‘I saw filthy couches, junk, cigarette butts, nappies, cockroaches and mice everywhere, broken windows and a fridge filled with rotten food.

‘The infestation of cockroaches is so bad, they’re appearing from being plug sockets and light-switches.’

The house was infested with cockroaches and mice (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

Cockroaches were said to be crawling from plugs and light switches (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

Mr Adams believes the family started taking drugs during their lease (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

The policy officer said he had very few issues with the family during the first two years of their three-year lease.

But he says the family started falling behind on rent and when he began to notice damage to the property opted not to renew their lease, evicting them on May 31.

When he saw the state of the house the next day he says he was left ‘shocked and numb’ and adds it took 20 volunteers nine days to get the home into a respectable state.

But Travis, who is not fully covered for the damage by his landlord’s insurance, believes there is still a long way to go before it’s liveable and his sister-in-law, Charmaine Kettle, has set up a GoFundMe page to help out.

Despite a mammoth cleanup operation, Mr Adams says the house is still a long way away from a respectable condition (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

Mr Adams was shocked when he found the state the house was in (Picture: 9News)

He opted not to renew their lease when he began to notice damage to his property (Picture: Travis Adams/Caters News)

He added: ‘Initially they were good tenants for the first two years and always paid rent on time – but they started taking hard drugs and this caused them to be this way.

‘I’ve decided to move back into the property for a year to help re-coup costs, so I need to get it back into a livable condition before June 21.

‘It’s taken over a week so far with the help of friends and family, but there are still a lot more costs to come with repairs to the electrics, kitchen and ceiling.

‘I will look into my legal options to try and recover some of the costs from either the tenants or the state.

‘Everyone has been horrified that this happened.’

Visit https://www.gofundme.com/worst-tenants for more information.

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