Hey, I thought I'd put in my two, three, four cents worth as a tenant in Melbourne. I've lived here for 11 years now and I can tell you there are many terrible real estate property managers around.

I've been that tenant trying to see properties on lunch breaks and being crowded into a place for a 15 minute showing! I've been that tenant waiting for calls, text messages and emails to see a property and they never come.

At my last rental property the house was moving due to a large tree in the back yard. It was slowly but surely destroying the house. As the cracks got larger the doors jammed, the bathroom tiles split and water started getting into places it shouldn't. Where did all my requests to the agent go?

Nowhere!

I managed to get in direct contact with the owner after a chance conversation with a neighbour and discovered she knew nothing about the damage to the house. The agent had LIED directly to me in writing, claiming he had told the owner.

At my current property, after I moved in it took some 36 forms of communication to get some very basic maintenance done. Calls and emails all ignored. We're with Metro Property Management (director Leah Calnan) and they are simply terrible from a tenant perspective. We currently have a rat or something large living in the ceiling. This was reported to them during the last inspection (months ago). Nothing has happened and I'll bet a $100 that if I were to call, they'd have no knowledge or record of it.

Is it chewing wires? Maybe.  It it running around filling the roof with feces? Probably. Is it damaging the property and the owners have no idea? Very likely.

It go so bad with Metro Property Management that I finally started writing about it on a website: http://www.metropmsucks.com.au

When a tenant is forced to write about such terrible experiences, you know it's bad.

I highly recommend all landlords pretend to be a tenant to test out a property management company. I also HIGHLY recommend  that your tenants can actually get in contact with you in some way – even a PO Box so they can write to you. My last landlord didn't know for FOUR years all the damage that was occurring. I doubt my current landlords have any idea what is going on here right now.