Dreading our final inspection when we leave our rental!!
 

Hi all,

I wonder if any of you have had exerience with rentals and young children. We took a rental for 6 months. Took the one that was available which happened to be new. We were looking for an older property with two little ones.

Any ways with winter they have been indoors a lot. The problem is the plaster has got loads of little tiny bits taken out of it. I went around the other day and tried to use a polyfilla skimmer and today hubby and I spent the day sanding and painting with the touch up paint the builders left. The problem is I think it looks pretty crap. When we have tried to sand back some of the filler the paint has come off even more. Hubby went over it a couple of times with the roller and it does look better but will never be as good as the original walls.

Has anyone had any experience of this sort of thing. I have accepted we will probably lose our bond but would hate to be faced with a bill to redecorate the whole place.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Poppet UK.

p.s I just hate Oz plaster!

Re: Dreading our final inspection when we leave our rental!!
 

Hi

We had a new build too and with three kids 8, 6 and 5, there were plenty of marks on the walls (no damage as such just wear and tear). There were a few minor dents which we dealt with and I wiped away at the worst of the marks and thought that would be fine but, oh no, they wanted us to wipe down each and every wall with sugar soap or similar. No matter what cloth I used they all seemed to snag on the paintwork as the finish was so coarse and the paint must have been the cheapest on the market as it just seemed to wash away leaving an overall smeared effect. It took us an additional 6 hours of hardwork to get the house up to a standard that they thought was acceptable before agreeing to give us our bond back.

I felt that they were being difficult because they thought that because it was a new property, tenants would be happy to stay for 2-3 years (we stayed 10 months) and after that length of time they would have accepted that they would have to redecorate throughout.

I would still be interested to hear their definition of wear and tear!

Good luck with getting your bond back.

B

Re: Dreading our final inspection when we leave our rental!!
 

Our problem is the plaster is very low grade in the rental. You can pick it with your nail. Not like that in the house we just bought. Means that scrapes actually makes the plaster come away. Will point this out to the agent.

Thanks for your response. Will let you know how we go. :(

PoppetUK

Re: Dreading our final inspection when we leave our rental!!
 

Simply by accident my wife forgot to pay 4 separate weeks rent over a 12 month period, we were never chased up on the matter until we handed keys back at end of lease.

The lady said we owe 4 weeks rent, i said keep the bond as rent and never heard anything, try it , it may just work.

Re: Dreading our final inspection when we leave our rental!!
 

I must admit it always suprises me when I see rentals which say no pets, but then they accept children. LOL

Re: Dreading our final inspection when we leave our rental!!
 

We are handing over rental on friday week. 2 kids (5 and 6) and 2 dogs (6 & 7)!!!!

Chips on corners, skirting boards with scuff marks - you name it!! I just can't keep up with them all. It was never this bad in the UK!

Anyway, we complete on our new house today, move in on Saturday and have Monday - Wednesday to clean, repair the rental. Carpet/pest 'decontaminators (?) coming in on the Thursday and then fingers crossed.

It isn't a new build and we listed loads of things wrong with it at the beginning (trying to be ambiguous like 'marks on walls') so if there are a couple of extra marks we may get away with it.

Good luck to everyone in the this situation. I will keep you posted. Advice we were given was to list the tiniest of flaw/defect in the entry report as they will try to get you where they can.

Carol:D

Re: Dreading our final inspection when we leave our rental!!
 

tell me about it. Pretty tough to train a child not to touch the walls at 18months and 3!!!! Bloody plaster used to get stuck under my nails even when tucking my daughters duvet in it was that soft. Beds next to walls aren't good!!!