How a Brisbane renter’s end of lease bond clean turned into a nightmare

A tenant told her painful experience to a supposedly experienced cleaner of deposits. The cleaner left a trail of destruction and the damage ran into thousands of euros.

The Brisbane woman hired the cleaner’s services after reading his supposedly positive reviews on the platform Airtasker when she moved out of her studio last week.

Instead, she was forced to endure a miserable, nearly 24-hour ordeal, leaving her with chainsaw-damaged furniture and belongings.

“He sent me a quote and it wasn’t all that different from the quotes I had received from cleaning companies and movers, but it was a little cheaper,” the tenant wrote on Reddit, according to the Courier post.

“We discussed all the extra things he would do to make sure my house would be in much better condition than when I found it,”

According to the tenant, the quotes were professionally prepared and she had checked the accuracy of his company several times, so she hired him to help remove furniture, dispose of trash, and make minor repairs.

Because he was so available, he could only complete the job on the day her lease was up.

The contractor arrived at the property on time and demonstrated his experience while loading the equipment into his pickup truck.

“To be honest, I didn’t expect all of my furniture and extra boxes to fit into a pickup truck, but the Tetris skills were incredible: everything was safe, secure and loaded and I was impressed,” she wrote.

However, things changed when the contractor left to pick up a cleaner he had hired to help him with the job.

The man left at 10:30 am and promised to be back at 12:00 pm.

After not answering texts or calls for two hours, the contractor told the renter he had left his keys in his pickup truck.

When he finally arrived with the cleaning lady, he showed her what needed to be done and she got to work while he left for another job.

The contractor had his cleaner and the tenant work in the house, but at 5:30 p.m. he contacted the tenant and asked for an advance on the moving bill, saying he didn’t have enough money.

Three hours later, the contractor told the tenant that he was on his way back but had broken down because he had forgotten to fill up with gas.

‘(He) asked me to Uber him the can of gas he left in my carport. I told him to just Uber from my house to his so we wouldn’t have to deal with adjusting the bills later, so he did – but to the wrong address. Around 8:45, maybe a little later, the Uber finally showed up, I gave them the gas and that was that.’

The tenant had to pay an additional amount for a cleaning at the end of the rental period (stock image)

He criticized the cleaning lady for doing such a poor job, apparently making her mopped floor dirty with his work boots, and told the tenant that her windows needed “extra” treatment.

‘He ripped out my screens and had this girl hose them down. I went to talk to one of the housemates who lives right below me (to say) there might be some noise.

“When I came back up, he had taken the hose inside and was spraying the shutters and the window railings. The water was spraying everywhere,” the tenant said.

‘Before he spontaneously started hosing down, he had made no effort to move anything away from the splash zone or to protect things. As a result, my TV cabinet, my vacuum cleaner, the charger for my cordless vacuum cleaner, my freshly cleaned mattress and much more were splashed.’

The cleaner left at 9:30pm and the contractor began clearing out the last of the tenant’s belongings, starting with a leather sofa.

“He asked how I got it into my house, and I explained that I had to carry it horizontally, at a slight angle, and that we both had to carry it. He said he knew better and that he had tried it vertically, but it didn’t fit,” the tenant wrote.

The contractor seemed professional online and at the start of the job the day turned into a nightmare

‘He came back with a small chainsaw and started attacking the couch, swearing and ranting. My roommate texted me asking what was going on. I explained and she was concerned.

‘Apparently the chainsaw wasn’t working, so he left and came back with a crowbar and started smashing the couch with it. He hit it back so hard that it completely broke the controls for my front storm hatch and knocked a chunk out of my door frame.

‘I took a step back and was very scared, both for my own safety and for what my landlord would do.

“He finally broke enough of the couch to get it through the door. I went outside to get some air and saw him grab the couch, drag it outside, flip it vertically on its side, and for some ungodly reason throw it down the wet stairs directly into the door of his car, denting it.”

After the couch was tackled, the tenant walked to the back of the property and heard a loud noise.

The contractor told the woman that he had thrown a crowbar into the backyard and she saw that it had hit a bin of expensive, collectible mugs.

At around 1:30 a.m., the contractor informed the tenant that the cleaning was complete. He assured her that she would get her security deposit back, apologized for the trouble, and then requested prompt payment for his services.

Despite this, the tenant found the apartment in poor condition and spent two hours cleaning up the damage.

After all the misery, the landlord gave the tenant a few extra days to arrange for a new cleaner, but he had to pay thousands of dollars himself.