Charisse made 50 complaints about her mould-infested rental before moving out… but here’s why her landlord claimed she was the problem
- Melbourne woman lived in flooded home for a year
- Finally recovered costs after two years of litigation
A tenant who was forced to live with her family in a moldy building for months has been awarded $5,000 after taking her landlord to court.
Charisse and her partner, as well as her elderly parents, were forced to live in the nightmare house in Officer, in Melbourne’s south-east.
The family suffered from persistent flooding, mold growth and a foul odor due to unresolved plumbing issues.
When she was finally able to move, her landlord refused to refund her deposit, saying one of the reasons was that the grass hadn’t been mowed.
The dispute lasted almost two years and the case was brought before the Victoria Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Ultimately, a judge last week granted Charisse $2,800 bail, plus four weeks of additional rent as compensation.
The problems started immediately after Charisse and her family moved into the Victorian property in December 2021.
Heavy rainfall and poor plumbing caused the house to flood, damaging the bathroom, shower and toilet.
Charisse (above) waited anxiously for two years for her bail appeal to be heard in court
The result was a persistent, unpleasant odor and water damage throughout the house.
Charisse reported that her family received minimal assistance despite sending 48 separate complaints to the realtor.
The only thing that was done was to unclog the gutters, but this did not solve the problem.
“We literally had standing water on the porch from the day we moved in until the day we moved out,” Charisse said. Yeah.
“The water was seeping through the bricks and mold was coming through the walls. The carpet was getting moldy. We had to move out of our bedroom and my husband and I were sleeping in the living room.”
By the end of 2022, Charisse found another property and was able to move.
She said her elderly father died three months after they left the property and doctors found a “black mass” in his lung that could not be identified, although one doctor said it was “possibly related to mold.”
Victoria’s tenancy laws set minimum standards for rental properties, including the requirement that all rooms be ‘free from mould and damp caused by or relating to the construction of the building’.
Landlords are also required to make emergency repairs for problems that arise after the tenant has moved in.
Despite the property’s ongoing shortcomings, Charisse was denied bail for “ridiculous” reasons.
Her property was experiencing severe flooding when she and her family moved in
One of the reasons the landlord gave was that the grass had not been mowed. According to Charisse, this is blatantly untrue.
“We had taken excellent care of the place, but they had not taken good care of us,” she said.
“He could have just given us our deposit back and there wouldn’t have been any problem, instead of it taking two years.”
The humidity destroyed many of Charisse’s belongings and she reportedly had to take her horses to the vet, who were kept in a soggy paddock.
Charisse brought her 200 pages of evidence to court, but her case was postponed seven times before it was heard.
She had not expected the case to be heard fairly after a two-year delay, but in the end the judge ruled decisively in her favor and ordered Charisse to pay back her claims for rent, lost belongings and veterinary bills.