Aussie landlord's 'nightmare' after rental property trashed by tenants

An Aussie landlord planning to sell his investment property in Melbourne was shocked to discover the state in which the tenants left the home.

Hoping to sell up and retire, Kevin Martin claims he gave the tenants 90 days to vacate the property and find a new rental, but when they did, it was left in ruins.

The 55-year-old handyman is now facing huge costs to get the house back up to scratch and repair the damage left behind by the tenants. But it's so badly trashed he says the house "needs to be pulled down and thrown in the bin" and admits it's causing him to "lose sleep at night".

Landlord's property 'nightmare'

When Kevin arrived at his investment property he found the dishwasher still packed with dirty dishes. The oven door was "hanging off" and the cooktop was missing. "I don't know why you'd do that," he told A Current Affair.

But that's not the worst of it. In the laundry, piles of dirty clothes remain and there's rotting furniture strewn across the house. There's even what appears to be splatted blood across the walls and a shed filled with junk. "It's like a nightmare," he said.

Shocking footage of the property captured by the program shows mouldy walls and floors and buckling floorboards. When Kevin arrived at the house after the tenants moved out, he said it was "covered in water". He believes they'd been hosing down the inside of the home.

"There's a filthy smell, it's driving me nuts," the frustrated man said.

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Fed up landlords exiting rental market

Kevin is one of many Aussie landlords selling up and stepping away from the rental market, further adding to the strain of the current rental crisis.

"We are seeing a large amount of rental providers either looking to get out or exiting the market, and I'm talking very sizable numbers," said Quentin Kilian, CEO of Real Estate Institute Victoria (REIV). "Landlords rights I think have been eroded over the past couple of years more so than any other time in our history".

"The government needs to stop seeing rent providers as some sort of enemy or cash cow," he added.

Aside from renter's bond and insurance, he says landlords have little other recourse when their homes are left ruined.

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