Property expert Chris Gray talks to Moira Geddes about current property market conditions and settles the score over whether to buy or rent

THEY are the houses from hell, the rental properties that should have an ‘enter at your own risk’ sign emblazoned at the front.

And when the tenants complained, they received nothing but grief.

Now those very people have taken their revenge on those “lazy” land lords and “dodgy” real estate agents by warning others of these properties online.

And the result is a catalogue of the country’s dodgiest rentals.

According to the site Dontrentme.com, the suburb of Southport in Queensland has the most complaints. The WA southern suburb of Shelley comes in at second, followed by Frankston in Victoria and Stanmore in New South Wales.

The site has been running since 2012 and was originally set up by Anthony Ziebell after his own bad rental experience.

While it has more than 500,000 addresses registered, there is only about 1000 complaints.

Mr Ziebell told news.com.au he designed it to help make the rental market a fair and honest place for tenants and to warn others about negative experiences.

And while he admits the website exists to promote negative experiences, he says the overall goal was “irrefutably good”.

Users are able to name and shame agents and landlords by writing about their experience and posting photos.

They are also able to give the place a rating out of five.

And while the use of the site has been growing steadily over the years, not everyone is a fan.

Mr Ziebell said since it began he has been threatened with lawsuits from unhappy landlords and agents.

“They just can’t see the good work we are trying to do,” he explained. “We have received legal threats but in saying that we have been very careful with our terms and conditions.

“We ask our users to make sure to not to name an individual. There should not be any review that identifies an individual, only addresses or the agency.”

A quick browse of the site reveals numerous complaints and some complete with photos.

One user claims to have rented this Sydney house in February 2012. He said, “beware of this property and the owner”.

“The house is full of black mould during winter. The dining room roof and walls is covered in it and had to be cleaned about three times during winter,” he wrote.

“My two-year-old daughter had a constant cough and rattley chest while we were there. As soon as we moved the cough and chest cleared up. The house is old with a leaking shower which makes one wall wet. The living room carpets are old, thread bare and smell. The kitchen is need of repair and the cupboards smell.

“The landlord is arrogant and lives next door. He will charge you $40 extra for the lawns/garden each time he does them. He will not let you do it yourself. This is not mentioned upon application. At end of lease he tried to charge me $80 to ‘fix’ the garden! He is very unreasonable and will argue every thing. He tries to fix things himself and only does a substandard job. If the premise has been ‘freshly painted’ this is due to hide the mould.

“DO NOT RENT THIS PREMISE!”

While it is predominantly a name and shame site, Mr Ziebell said its main role was to resolve problems.

He said there had been numerous cases of tenants posting issues online then either the agent or landlord seeing it and contacting them individually to resolve it.

He cites one example of a man falling through stairs in his home as a good result.

Mr Ziebell said the man initially complained to his agency that he cut his leg and that the stairs were poorly constructed, but he claims they ignored him so he posted his experience on Dontrentme.com.

He said the landlord then found out what happened from the site, contacted the man, fixed the stairs and dealt with the agency which had never informed the landlord of the incident.

As a result, Mr Ziebell said he agreed to take down the post, something he says the site does when an agent or landlord resolves a complaint.

But when asked if removing the complaint made it impossible for viewers to know if a rental had any problems and defeated a key aspect of the site, Mr Ziebell said he was weeks away from adding a new feature that would keep the original complaint on the address but not contribute to a bad rating.

“And it will show that there was a successful resolution,” he said.