A look at Australia’s 5 most shocking rental properties – realestate.com.au

Rising rental prices across Australia have meant that even the most shocking properties cost a hefty sum.

Thousands of Aussies have shared some of the worst rental properties they’ve ever seen on the internet over the past year, whether it’s the ‘Don’t Rent Me’ Facebook group with almost 100,000 users, or the wildly popular website ‘Sh*t Rentals’, a nationwide database of sketchy places.

Influencer and Victorian Socialist Senate candidate Jordan van den Lamb (Purple Pingers) has been running a video series on bad rental prices for several years and spoke to News Corp about five of the worst rental properties in Australia in 2025.

A photo in Park Ridge South, QLD, which featured in Mr van den Lamb’s video ‘The Worst Rental in Queensland?’.

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1. Waste container for rent

In April, an anonymous Queenslander received 200 comments when he posted images of a Park Ridge South house to the Don’t Rent Me Facebook group.

“I just went to see a house that cost $600 [a week]’ they said. “I couldn’t take too many pictures because the smell was rancid.”

But the photos they took were enough for Mr Van den Lamb to take to YouTube to suggest it was “the worst rental property in Queensland”. Photos of the four-bedroom home were covered in mold, stains, trash and termite-infested wood, and showed cracked tiles speculated to be asbestos.

The house was advertised for $600 a week, but the potential renter couldn’t stay there long because of the smell.

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Mold and stains were found throughout the home, along with tiles suspected of being asbestos.

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Trash was found throughout the property, which was reportedly rented out in this condition.

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When the user asked the property manager about the condition of the house, he was told that this was the condition it would be rented out in, with no effort to clean up even some of the trash on the floors.

“Agents and landlords will charge as much as they can get away with,” said Van den Lamb. “It is rare to see a significant discount applied to a property based on its condition – and this is due to the way agents price rental properties.”

Mr Van den Lamb said the price of many houses is based on CoreLogic reports which calculate the price based on the size, bedrooms and rental price in the nearby area.

“CoreLogic cannot take into account the actual condition of the property as this is not a data point that is uploaded,” he said.

Listing images of a Burwood, NSW – photoshopped to hide the condition of the unit.

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Video of the property showed how stained and damaged the area really was.

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The ad did not include photos of the moldy, cracked bathroom, which Mr Van den Lamb said may have been too difficult to Photoshop.

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2. Photoshop mistakes

The two-bedroom NSW unit in Burwood was advertised as ‘perfect for professionals [and] small families”; but hid how dilapidated it really was with some basic photoshop.

Mr Van den Lamb’s coverage of the house was his most liked ‘Shit Rentals’ video on Instagram this year, where he compared photos of the property to a video inspection.

“The photos they used in the ad are actually quite nice,” he said, “if you ignore the sink awkwardly sitting there in the corner.”

Images of the kitchen show a unit in pristine condition.

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The real kitchen has a cavernous sink with a peeling brick-pattern wallpaper at the back.

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Under the sink there is a damaged, moldy floor, which is not at all clear from the advertisement.

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But the video showed the real state of the property, from a stained bedroom to a bathroom full of holes and cracks in the wall.

Meanwhile, the kitchen was covered in brick-patterned wallpaper, which was peeling around the sink.

Mr Van den Lamb said that while it was illegal to use old images of a property for a new rental property, he had not seen the government enforce this.

“Examples like this are unfortunately not outliers at all,” he said. “It is very common for rental advertisements to use images from the last time the property was sold, which in many cases can easily be more than 10 years old.”

A rental house in Coburg, which was one of the most liked rental posts on Reddit in 2025.

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The bathroom alone is covered in holes and cracks in the wall, and one commenter says that renting a house under these circumstances should be illegal.

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3. Mold, mold everywhere

The landlords of this Victorian property advertised the house online as a ‘charming’ three-bedroom home, fetching $500 a week, but photos showed anything but.

When people went to inspect the three-bedroom house, there was mold on the carpets and walls of the property in the Coburg rental property.

Photos also show a desk being used as a kitchen bench, along with holes scattered across the bathroom wall.

A desk was used as a kitchen table, instead of proper facilities.

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This was the description of the property that was called misleading. The listing was later removed following public backlash.

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This Victoria unit was one of the most upvoted posts on a rental subreddit this year.

“Would a kitchen bench desk really meet minimum rental standards?” the original poster asked.

“Looks like it should be condemned,” one comment replied. “It should be illegal to rent out homes in this state.”

“If you had lived here for a year, you would have paid $26,000 in rent,” Van den Lamb said on social media: the same price the house was last sold for in 1981.

It was reported that the house in St James, WA, had unlivable conditions that the landlord did not want to do anything about, such as dangerous floorboards sticking up into the air.

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Under the floorboards of the house was a car jack, which looked like it was supporting part of the structure.

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4. Floors you can’t ignore

In Western Australia, a two-bedroom house in St James was listed on the Shit Rentals website and was described by the tenant as an ‘absolute nightmare’.

Photos of the property showed floorboards sticking into the air, along with broken doors and damaged appliances such as electrical sockets.

Cracks could be found in the walls, along with a jack under the floorboards that appeared to be supporting part of the property.

Damaged electrical outlets were reportedly ignored by the landlord, along with cracks along the walls of the home.

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“Better to pitch a tent in the park,” said the tenant.

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“The landlord doesn’t care,” the tenant wrote in his submission. “Maintenance was the biggest part of the problem, nothing more than the bare minimum to keep a roof over the tenant’s head. Better to pitch a tent in the park.”

Mr Van den Lamb said he has not seen any successful action to curb investors offering risky properties for rent.

“The number of unsafe rental properties is certainly not decreasing,” he says. “Some states have a higher prevalence than others – for example I’ve seen a huge amount in QLD, WA and SA.”

Termite damage, collapsed floors and leaks could be found in this Norwood, SA property at the time it was submitted to Reddit.

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The landlord had reportedly increased the rent on the house by $100 per week after the old tenants moved out, without fixing any problems with the house.

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5. Termite can be a problem

Another entry found in the rental database was from a South Australian tenant, who said the landlord had tried to take them to court over damages that she herself had ignored.

The three-bedroom house in Norwood saw termite damage throughout the property, which the tenant said led to a collapsed floor.

Meanwhile, photos showed a leak in the home, which the tenant said was one of several causing black mold to form along the floor and walls.

Mr Van den Lamb said that if there is no government intervention to help reduce rents, tenants would have to organize collective action to fight for better conditions.

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‘Just a few weeks after the move…new tenants were brought in and the rent was increased by $100 [per] week,” they said. “After contacting the new tenants, it was confirmed that the structural issues STILL exist. A new cycle of exploitation and not feeling safe and comfortable at home.”

The tenant said they were taken to court over a window pressure crack that they did not cause, but the landlord ultimately lost their case and returned the tenant’s deposit.

“To reduce rents we would need to see government intervention like we have seen in the ACT or around the world,” Mr Van den Lamb said, “otherwise tenants will have to organise.”