From Dutch Farmhouse to Sydney's Mouldy Shoebox: A Rental Nightmare
My first rental experience as a university student was far from glamorous, but it was honest and affordable. I shared a drab 1970s brick-and-tile house in a leafy suburb with a freshly single friend and his small kingdom of cats. The permanent scent of kitty litter filled the air, the games room doubled as a feline amusement park, and dinner often featured three-bean mix. Hot water was considered optional for dishwashing. A third friend later joined us, specializing in dramatic exits that required retrieval drives around the suburb.
It was chaotic, less sanitary than I was accustomed to, and deeply unaesthetic. Yet, at $60 a week, it felt fair for a 21-year-old student. Nearly a decade later, my second rental in Lonneker, on the agricultural fringe of the Netherlands near the German border, offered a bisected farmhouse on a working dairy farm. Octogenarian farmers lived on one side, and my family on the other. Tractors rumbled past at breakfast, dogs trotted between barns, and there was ample space. For young children, it was perfect, functional, roomy, and fair.
Sydney's Rental Market: A Radical Contrast
When circumstances brought me to Sydney's coastline in 2025, I discovered that $850 a week secured less than one might reasonably hope. My apartment was a poorly ventilated 59-square-metre shoebox with recurring mould and a talent for trapping heat. If it was 42 degrees outside, it was 42 degrees inside. The property manager, from an agency that claims it 'never sleeps', seemed busy crafting emails blaming structural issues on tenant lifestyle choices.
Sydney's rental market has been on a relentless trajectory of price increases far outpacing wage growth and common sense. Vacancy rates are tight, competition is ferocious, and landlords have little incentive to improve properties when multiple prospective tenants wait outside with pre-filled applications. It feels less like finding a place to live and more like surrendering money to avoid homelessness.
Challenges and Consequences of Substandard Living
Despite Sydney's charms—beaches, restaurants, cultural institutions, and abundant events—the gloss fades when the price of entry is a mould-flecked heat trap with no air-conditioning. A landlord treats maintenance requests as personal attacks, and a property manager implies condensation is your fault for breathing. After months of requesting mould removal and basic liveability, the reward was a rent rise to $900 a week.
Renters are expected to be grateful, but gratitude doesn't substitute for value amid rising rents, stagnating wages, and no improvement in standards or security. In just one year, I tolerated conditions I once assumed were temporary inconveniences, not the baseline for nearly $900 a week.
- In winter, the building's communal hot water system failed and remained unfixed for nearly a week. Suggested solutions included signing up for a gym trial for shower access or using cold showers at a surf club.
- Mould reported early in winter spread steadily, turning the ceiling grey. An electrician noted a significant ventilation defect requiring a high-powered extraction fan, ruling my dehumidifier as 'not fit for purpose'.
- The property manager blamed Sydney's 'unusually wet winter', described by the Bureau of Meteorology as the wettest in 18 years, suggesting shorter showers and leaving windows ajar.
- Mould was finally removed in February 2026, 251 days later, with a warning it would return without a ventilation system. During this period, my teenage daughter experienced repeated respiratory flare-ups requiring GP visits and Ventolin.
Additional Inconveniences and Market Dysfunction
Water leaked across the bathroom floor for months due to a shower needing resealing, ruining bathmats with mould. An Airbnb below launched an unannounced bathroom renovation, causing weeks of jackhammer vibrations. I wage a daily war on large German cockroaches and endure balcony performances from an unemployed Brazilian man learning guitar, massacring 'Hotel California' and nightly renditions of 'Let It Go'.
None of these problems are extraordinary individually—buildings age, repairs lag, cities are noisy, and pests are expected. But in February, I received notice that my rent would rise from $850 to $900 due to 'increases in charges and costs generally, along with current rental market trends.' After months of requesting hot water, ventilation, resealing, mould removal, and basic livability, the reward was a rent rise, making me feel classified as 'high-maintenance'.
A Landlord's Perspective and Decision to Leave
As a landlord myself, I understand rising costs—interest rates are up, insurance is up, and strata fees never go down. However, I rent out my four-bedroom, two-bathroom treetop home with a pool on half an acre in the Perth Hills for $700 a week, deliberately below value. I prioritize having a tenant who treats the place as their own over squeezing out every last dollar, and I did not raise the rent this year.
I've decided to let my Sydney apartment go and head back to Perth. If property can be an investment without being an extraction, there's no reason to pay for Sydney's dysfunction in both dollars and decibels. The contrast between affordable, functional living abroad and Sydney's costly, substandard rentals highlights a broader crisis in housing fairness and tenant rights.
