Why I Wouldn’t Get My Bond Back
Moving is stre
ssful! Trying to find something that timed perfectly with the end of your lease, filling out applications, chewing your nails waiting for the phone to ring with an answer as to whether you have been approved… and then there’s the actual packing.
How is it that we can accumulate so many things??? It’s no wonder that when the time comes for the exit inspection, most tenants are exhausted and emotionally fragile.
Many people are hurt, frustrated and sometimes furious when they receive the dreaded list of items they have overlooked or need to pay for. I get it! I really do. Because I know without a shadow of a doubt that I would never get my bond back. Here’s why:
I moved into my house in August of 2008. It was our second home and a massive step up from the little 3 bedroom shoebox we’d been living in. I was elated. The house was only 2 years old and everything looked brand new.
7 years on, here are just a FEW things that wouldn’t pass an exit inspection:
- The edge of the carpet in our living room has a thread pulled from when our delightful beagle, JJ, decided it would be entertaining to chew on it
- The oven has a small amount of damage to the bottom after my step son spilled cheese on it. We were away on holidays for 3 weeks and during this time he continued to use the oven without cleaning up the mess
- Our bathroom grout is stained as a result of hair dye – no not from doing it myself but from simply washing my hair and the dye coming out
- Mr Nobody (AKA one of the kids) dented the wall in the living room. The fact that the indent looks distinctly like the handle of the Guitar Hero is no coincidence
- JJ (again) clawed at the mesh of the security screen door one day after being locked out
- There’s a black staining on the ceiling of the entertainment area from where my husband continually cooked BBQs… and there’s paint missing in various areas after he pressure cleaned
- There’s a hole in the garage wall from where my husband backed into it, despite the reversing sensors on his Ford Ranger
- The blinds in my step son’s room is crinkled because he insisted on positioning his bed so he could watch TV and he used to lean against it
- There’s a chip in the bath tub from a scented candle that fell from the ledge
- And there’s a wedge out of the skirting board in the kitchen from when the wall clock fell
- Our tiles have multiple chips from items being dropped
And then there’s the cleaning! We are a normal family – by normal I mean, I work all week and every Sunday I look at the bombsite that we’ve created during the week and spend my precious downtime scrubbing, all to enjoy the blissful 2 hours where the house stays clean.
I own every cleaning product available at any supermarket but I CANNOT, clean like a professional.
I swear Kym from Gympie Pest and Clean has magical fairy dust in her rags because when I got her in a couple of month ago to do a bond clean on my house, I almost walked through the closed sliding glass door! It had taken her far less time than it would have taken me and looked 10 times better.
Tenants shouldn’t feel bad if they are sent back to clean something again. It would be like expecting your mechanic to know how to plaster a wall. Could they do it? Possibly. But would it look like a plasterer had done it? No way.
The moral of the article, apart from husbands, kids and pets causing lots of damage, is that most people will need to re-clean, repair or replace at least 1 thing. You’re human!
Next week we’ll be posting an article on how to get your bond back in full.
