This Comedian Asked His Real Estate Agent For A Landlord Reference Before Renting A House
"The response was a bit more intense than I was expecting."
If you’ve been living out of home for a few years and have rented a few properties in your time, you’ve more than likely had at least one landlord from hell.
Whether they tried to keep every cent of your bond for “damage” that was very clearly wear and tear, or they never bothered to fix the black mould that was growing in your bathroom, we’ve all had them. But what if you could avoid this by asking for a landlord reference before you sign the lease?
Aussie comedian Tom Cashman has done just that while property hunting in Sydney, and sadly, the end result wasn’t the slam dunk on landlords we were all hoping for.
Like many of us, Cashman applied for a couple of apartments and when he started to get approved, he thought he would ask if the real estate could provide landlord references.
This doesn’t seem like too much of stretch considering you have to provide at least two references before your rental application even reaches the agent’s desk. And with so many landlord horror stories floating around the internet, it’s probably worth double-checking that your landlord isn’t Satan himself before you sign away a third of your income to them for the next year.
However, in the follow up to his now-viral TikTok, Cashman found out the hard way that landlords — and least the one he was dealing with — aren’t too keen on the idea.
Cashman initially had to wait four days before following up with the real estate agent after not hearing back about his request.
After going back and forth with the real estate agent having to clarify what a landlord reference actually is, Cashman’s request was not only declined, but his application — previously approved — was immediately withdrawn by the real estate agent on his behalf.
Despite his less-than-successful results from the experiment, Cashman still suggests we should all be asking for landlord references. Sure, it may take a while before they start delivering them and — hopefully — start fixing the life-threatening mould infestations in our bathrooms, but if we all request it, they can’t just decline us all. Right? RIGHT?!