Renter locked in bitter feud with their landlord after forking out $1,260 to clean the carpets TWICE - and they STILL lost some of their bond

Daily Mail​

08-05-2025

A fed-up renter has accused their landlord of keeping almost half their bond after they forked out over $1,200 for two end-of-lease cleans.
The outgoing tenant shared detailed their experience on Reddit in a now-viral post that sparked fierce debate among renters and landlords.
After paying $700 for a professional end-of-lease clean at their two-storey, four-bedroom Sydney home, their landlord was still left unsatisfied.
'The landlord inspected it and still wasn't happy with the carpet even though it's not even a little bit of wear and tear. I then paid someone another $560 to clean the carpet again,' a tenant explained on Reddit.
Now out-of-pocket $1,250 for two end-of-lease cleans, the landlord hired their own cleaner and demanded the tenant pay a third time.
'The landlord still wasn't happy with it, so he's got someone to do it and now reckons he's happy with it and wants to keep $1400 out of the $3500 bond,' they wrote.
'What do I do?'
Sympathetic renters were quick to offer their advice and share similar horror stories.
'What an awful landlord,' one user wrote, adding the renter should provide both sets of invoices to the homeowner before lodging a dispute.
'In 23 years of being a landlord, I have NEVER retained any bond,' they wrote.
'The one lot of damage I had (damage to plasterboard) my father-in-law offered to repair it for the tenants just prior to vacating for 20 per cent of the cost they were quoted by another tradie so they could save money.'
The tenant replied, stating: 'Yeah, he's shocking, worst one I've had!'
The renter confirmed they had lodged a claim on the advice of a rental bonds agency including a receipt for cleaning services.
'The house was immaculate, lawns done everything perfect. Just wanted to get some more opinions so I'll tell him to dispute it if he has a problem,' they said.
Landlords were quick to defend keeping some of the bond from their tenants.
'I've had tenants wreck carpet with engine oil. Dog eat the bench top in the laundry. Same dog dug up the garden. Bond is there to be taken for these things. Tenants made no effort to fix any of them,' one said.
Alison Mackey, a solicitor at Inner Sydney Tenant's Advice and Advocacy Service within Redfern Legal Centre, said tenants are generally required simply to restore a rental to its condition at the outset of the lease.
'Under the Residential Tenancies Act, at the end of a tenancy, tenants must ensure that they return the premises to the landlord in a reasonably clean state,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
'Carpets should be close to the condition they were in at the beginning of the tenancy subject to fair wear and tear from ordinary use.
'Generally, tenants are not required to pay to have the carpet professionally cleaned or to reimburse the landlord for such an expense, unless an animal was kept at the premises during the tenancy.'
Other tenants raised similar concerns, with one Victorian renter recently claiming their landlord quoted them for $600 for a 'piece of lifted carpet'.
Victorian law requires tenants to leave rental properties 'reasonably clean and in the same condition as when they moved in, taking into account fair wear and tear'.
Other users raised doubts whether 'bond cleans' needed to be more thorough than usual cleans, casting doubt on the exorbitant fees charged by cleaning services.
'The whole idea that a bond clean vs a normal clean does my head in. I've paid for bond cleans that weren't as good as my own cleaning,' one person wrote.
Another agreed, claiming: 'I've always done the exit clean myself because I think it's stupid to have to pay out money to get your money back. There's nothing a professional cleaner can do that you can't do yourself.'