The little shack of horrors
FOR rent: “Cockroach and grease-laden” hovel. Smelly fridge. Front-door key does not work and my dog may keep you awake all night. Aside from that, in working order. Bargain at only $500 for three nights.
PS: Don’t tell the State Government because they own the joint.
A CHEEKY Gold Coast tenant put his Housing Commission home on Airbnb during the Commonwealth Games to earn extra cash while he went camping across the border.
His sneaky charade blew up yesterday when Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates asked Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in State Parliament how a publicly funded home could be rented out for profit.
The Premier asked for more details and said an investigation would be launched because it was illegal to rent Housing Commission homes.
The tenant would not come out of the home yesterday when the Bulletin visited.
A review posted by the holidaymaker who stayed at the Mudgeeraba home during the Games was scathing: “This is a dilapidated cockroach and grease-laden ramshackle home that someone may want to live in, but how it can be placed out for let is unfathomable.
“The smell from the fridge alone nearly killed us. We brought our own sheets and used them such was the state of the ones supplied — marked with god only knows what plus one of the beds was a blow up.
“The front-door key didn’t work and the owner’s dog barked all night to the point where twice the angry neighbours came round. This place needs fumigating and then demolition.”
A resident contacted the office of Public Housing Minister Mick de Brenni about the house, but staff were “unable to advise me if sub-letting public housing out on AirBnb was allowed”.
“The people of our neighbourhood are very upset and concerned. Please help us to get this place tidied up and the resident brought into line,” the resident wrote to Ms Bates.
Outside the Parliament, Ms Bates said: “It’s clear that Labor have lost control of the public housing system in Queensland. Public housing should be a privilege not a right. It shouldn’t be used as a tool to profiteer from taxpayers.”
Burleigh MP Michael Hart, the Opposition’s spokesperson on public housing, said: “Tenants being caught subletting is a slap in the face to Queenslanders, especially during the Commonwealth Games.
“Public housing is there for our most disadvantaged to have a roof over their heads, not make cash on the side.
“In government, the LNP came down like a tonne of bricks on these tenants for breaching their agreements, now it’s up to Labor to do the same.”