The purpose of this letter is not to defame anyone. It is a real life experience we had and we hope share with every one so that you will be more careful when renting a place.
Here are things that happened to us, chronologically:
29/04/06 Saturday
We viewed a room at a
condo unit in Bishan. The landlady, we will just call her Madam K, asked for a rental of $560 per month which includes the water and electricity bills. She said that her 2 children are using the common room next to ours but they will use the master room’s toilet. So the common toilet is solely for our use. We decided to rent due to this reason and also partly because she is a catholic.
I need a parking lot. She claimed that she has car and the management will charge $70 for the second car park. Without thinking of calling the management to verify, I agree with that. She charged us $25 per month for the wireless internet. So I paid her $655 ($560 + $70 + $25).The agreement starts on 01/06/06 and it is a 1 year contract with a minimum stay of 6 months. We requested to include the car park fee into the agreement but she refuses, saying that it’s a mutual trust. She requested to add a clause that if we move out anytime before the contract ends, we need to pay her back the agent fee proportionately. Ridiculous, but we agreed.
25/05/06 Thursday
Madam K called to inform me that she will rent out the room next to us on 18/06/06 and asked me whether it is ok. This means that we need to share the toilet with another person whose working hour might crash with us. Feeling a bit shock, we had no choice but to agree, reluctantly. Later we found out from our agent that initially she did not intend to inform us. It is our agent who advised her to do so as a courtesy. It also means that if she charges the other tenant $25 per month for the internet, her internet bill will be almost paid by us.
03/06/06 Saturday
We moved into her condo. She imposed some restrictions on us, which we think we should be informed before signing the agreement. Here are her restrictions:
• Air-con will be turned off at 6am in the morning. (The main switch is outside our room so our air-con will be turned off by her)
• Air-con is no expected to be used during the day, even during the weekends.
• We need to inform her when we want to use the internet. (What if she is not at home or we suddenly want to use in 2am in the morning??)
• We will not be given any storage space in the kitchen.
• She told me that the car park is $75 per month instead of $70 due to GST. I started to get suspicious since the GST is 5% and it will be only $3.50 instead of $5.00 extra. I decided to check with the management.
06/06/06 Tuesday
We requested for some space in the fridge. She reluctantly agreed. Her refrigerator is full of smelly stuff. We tried to adjust for some space to put in our fruits.
07/06/06 Wednesday
I went to the condo management office to check out the car park charges. I found out that the parking is actually free! Madam K has cheated us extra $75 per month for the car park! Besides that, I also found out that she doesn’t have a car. So the statement that my car is a second car is also a lie.
I asked my agent to clarify with Madam K. My agent called her and initially she still denied she lied. When the agent told her that we had checked with the management office, she admitted that she cheated on us but she said that she “deserves”