Very Unpleasant Rental Experience - Be Careful!

Corrie Hurter from The Rental Giant was our landlady when we rented her cottage starting in February 2025, and unfortunately our experience was extremely unpleasant.

Shortly after moving in, we discovered that her washing machine was connected to the outside plug of the cottage, which runs off the tenant’s prepaid electricity meter. This meant electricity was being used from our meter without us initially being aware of it. When we raised this with her, she said she did not know about it, although we were not the first tenants to live there.

Like many people trying to save electricity, we would switch the geyser on and off at the DB board. The geyser eventually stopped working and we were left without hot water for a long period of time. The geyser appeared to be quite old, however we were blamed for the issue because we switched it on and off and were asked to pay for the element and repairs, which we did not agree with.

The kitchen window of the main house is directly opposite the entrance to the cottage, which often made it feel like we were being watched and that we had very little privacy.

When we decided to move out, we were presented with a long list of so called “damages” and a large portion of our deposit was deducted. Many of the items listed were things we did not agree were damages. The cottage itself has several poorly done repairs and during our time there we actually improved parts of the property by installing additional plug points and resizing doors that previously did not close properly.

She even charged us for our friends using water to “flush the toilets” and claimed they did their washing at our place, which they didn’t. She has no proof of this, and water was actually included in our lease. Nowhere in our lease did it say that we are not allowed visitors.

The toilet room has no window and the bathroom also has no windows for ventilation, which makes it difficult for steam to escape. As a result, black mould developed over time and we were later charged for this as well.

We are not the first people to complain about her. There is lots of proof online of other people’s experiences with her. She will find any excuse to not give your deposit back like she did to us and many others.