A disgruntled tenant has shared their upset after receiving what they described an “extremely f–king rude” email from their real estate agent.
The email, shared by the tenant to social media on Thursday, was sent to warn the owner of the rental would be conducting an inspection on October 18 between 9 am and 12 pm.
The “extremely f–king rude” part was the inclusion of several concerns the agent requested the tenant address ahead of the scheduled visit.
“During the inspection, we noted that the bedrooms are untidy, clothes on the floor, spiderweb near the balcony doors, the bathroom and shower area can be cleaner,” part of the email read.
“I would suggest to tidy the place so it’s better to represent the owner.”
The tenant, understood to be renting in Sydney, said they were “sick of this” because “it is our home”.
While a rental owner is legally permitted to visit a property provided they give at least seven days of written notice for each visit, the list of demands was what rubbed them the wrong way.
Hundreds of respondents agreed the email came off particularly abrasive, especially given it was the tenant who would be going out of their way.
Some made petty suggestions on how they could handle the situation.
“Cancel on them that morning saying you ‘have Covid-like symptoms’ and if they want to visit still, just cough at every chance you get,” one reply read.
Another said they always made sure their rental looked “lived in” for inspections.
“I purposely make sure I have some clothes laying around. It shows that the place is lived in not spotless all the time. My real estate agent said she inspections are mainly to see that there is no physical damage to the property, not if there are some clothes on the floors/beds and some cobwebs,” they wrote.
“This is some petty sh**. A spiderweb? Ridiculous. I like my spiders, they eat the mozzies in summer,” another said.
The tenant later shared the email they replied to the real estate agent with, in which they firmly pointed out they had not been informed the most recent visit was an inspection.
“Thank you for letting us know about the visit, we will make sure the property is tidy for the owner to view,” the email opened with.
“Just to note, as we are very busy people with a lot going on, the apartment will not always look like a display home and will at times look lived in. I would suggest checking the notes from the previous actual inspection and see that, at that time, it was immaculate,” they wrote.
“As this visit was termed an appraisal and not an official inspection, we didn’t take the time to make it aesthetically pleasing for you, and as such you caught us in between our cleaning and tidying cycles.
“I’ve attached below the original email stating that it was an appraisal, not an inspection. An appraisal mind you that I had come home mid work day to let you in for.”
The reply was deemed by some as “way too nice” but others acknowledged relationships between tenants and owners were often delicate and needed to be treated as such.