‘My landlord insured me on his Mercedes to chauffeur him to Grindr dates’: Tenants reveal VERY strange demands while renting house-shares, from signing documents banning meat, orders not to buy white bread – and rows over killing houseplants

With the cost of living The crisis has left many Britons renting for longer as they get older – with the dream of buying a house seeming unattainable.

And with that, many tenants will try to save costs by sharing a home with others, which obviously requires a compromise.

And some roommates and landlords have stranger demands than others.

From insuring cars to act as 'drivers', to arguments over watering houseplants or dictations on what food to bring, here we reveal some of the strange requests tenants face:

'My landlord secured me his Mercedes so I could take him to Grindr dates'

Rebecca Mitchell, who now lives in Sevenoaks in Kent, said her live-in landlord made her take him to dates he arranged through the dating app Grindr.

She said: 'I lived in Brisbane for a while and my flatmate – who was also my landlord – had me insured for his Mercedes so I could drive him to his Grindr dates.'

The 44-year-old, who runs a company installing living walls for events, said: 'He was a bit of a character.

'I was traveling with my now ex-husband and we met a woman in Thailand who said we should meet her in Brisbane and go out for dinner.

'We arrived two months late. But somehow she was there and we had a wonderful dinner with her and this man who lived with her in this beautiful millionaire apartment – it was beautiful.

'He was English, very 'oh dear'. That evening, bizarrely, his roommate decided to simply move out, without notice. So we took over his room. It was a true rags to riches story.

“I got a great job where I could do it from home and he said, 'Oh, wouldn't it be great if you could drive?'

“I said, 'well, I can drive, I have my RV.' And he said no, you need a better car than that.”

At this point Mrs Mitchell said that, looking back, she had been 'very green, very innocent'.

She continued, “I had insurance on this beautiful car and I was able to drive it around a bit, but the main purpose was to drop him off on his Grindr dates.

'But I'd drop him off and an hour later he'd call me to say he was ready to go home – he was quite productive.

'It was a bloodbath, but it was a lot of fun. He was crazy.

“He had just gotten out of a relationship when I met him, so he was going through that phase and just having a lot of fun.

'I didn't have much experience living with other people.'

'My roommate made me sign a document stating that I would not bring meat into my home'

Amanda Overend, from Ilkley, West Yorks, said she shared a house with a vegan who had very strict rules about the kitchen.

The 43-year-old, who runs an online bookshop, said: 'I rented a room in a house owned by a vegan.

'I'm a vegetarian, but she made me sign a document saying I wouldn't bring meat into the house, and if I did it had to stay wrapped.

“She also let us use a separate refrigerator for our vegetarian food.”

'I was told to clean her dog's blood off the furniture'

Noel Duan, who lives in Hampstead, said that while she was renting in New York City, her roommate told her to clean up her dog's blood when she got home from work.

The 32-year-old – who now has her own rescue dog called Artemis – said: 'My housemate's pug got her period while we were at work, and she asked me to clean it all up for her.

'I was confused when I came home from work and the sofa and floor were covered in blood. She hadn't told the other housemates in advance.'

Now one professional dog groomer and loving dog mom, she added: 'That was my first experience of living with a dog.

'Now I have my own dog and a pet grooming start-up approved by the University of Oxford, so the experience hasn't put me off my love of dogs at all.

'I moved before the end of the lease and a year later I adopted my own dog.

“I think I cleaned up the floors and couch as best I could because I wasn't sure when my roommate would get home.

'She had a habit of not coming back for two to three days in a row and asking me to feed her dog.

“I wasn't irritated or angry at her pug at all – I loved her dog – because of her very normal biological function.

'I was obviously disappointed with my housemate's negligence towards her dog and her lack of communication and respect for her other housemates.'

'I was told not to buy white bread and peanut butter after my dieting housemate ate all of me'

Lottie Reeves, a former teacher, said her roommate scolded her for buying white bread and peanut butter after he ate her food.

The mum-of-two said: 'I was sent away for buying white bread and peanut butter as my housemate couldn't resist and ate it all.

“He was angry because it threw his diet out the window, so he told me not to buy it again.”

'They wanted to dig up their dead cat and bury it in the garden'

Accountant Claire Hancott said that as a landlord she has also experienced strange requests from tenants.

She said: 'One of our tenants wanted to bury his dead cat in the garden.

'The strange thing was that they wanted to dig it up from their existing house and take it with them.

'They had signed the new contract to move in and we received a call from our rental agent saying they had an additional request.

'We told them no and they continued to live there anyway. I suspect they bought the cat after all!'

'My roommate accused me of killing her plants'

Polly Arrowsmith said that when she was renting, she was forced to move out because a housemate went “ballistic” and accused her of killing her houseplants.

She says: 'My roommate wanted me to water her (already dead) plants while she was on holiday.

'She went wild when she came back and accused me of deliberately killing her plants that her late mother left her.

'Then she tampered with my food. I had to move.'

With many people paying an average rent of £1,231 per month outside the capital, and £2,567 per month in London, they hope for a quiet living environment.

But a study has shown that renting due to the stress leads to faster biological aging than owning your own home or living in social housing.

According to Hamptons, the number of households over the age of 65 renting a home will double to over a million in the next ten years.

Millennials, who are now about 35 years old and make up almost half of the country's rental market, were told by Hamptons that “those who haven't bought are likely to rent until retirement.”

Researchers from the University of Essex and the University of Adelaide in Australia found that renting privately, repeatedly falling behind on rent payments or living in a home affected by pollution are linked to faster biological aging.