Rising rents across Australia have meant even the most shocking properties are going for a hefty sum.
Thousands of Aussies have spent the last year sharing some of the worst rentals they’ve seen across the internet: be it the ‘Don’t Rent Me’ Facebook group with nearly 100,000 users, or the wildly popular ‘Sh*t Rentals’ website, a nationwide database of sketchy spots.
Influencer and Victorian Socialists senate candidate Jordan van den Lamb (Purple Pingers) has been running a video series on bad rentals for some years, and spoke to News Corp about five of Australia’s worst rentals in 2025.
Influencer Jordan van den Lamb (Purple Pingers) spoke about some of the worst rental properties he’d seen across Australia this year. Picture: Matt Hrkac.
A photo at Park Ridge South, QLD, which featured in Mr van den Lamb’s video ‘The Worst Rental in Queensland?’.
In April, an anonymous Queenslander got two hundred reactions when they posted images of a Park Ridge South home in the Don’t Rent Me Facebook group.
“Just went to view a house that was $600 [a week],” they said. “I couldn’t take too many photos because the smell was rancid.”
But the photos they took were enough for Mr van den Lamb to suggest it was “The worst rental in Queensland” on YouTube. Photos of the four-bedroom house were covered in mould, stains, garbage and termite-infested wood, and featured cracked tiles that were speculated to be asbestos.
The home was advertised at $600 a week, but the potential tenant couldn’t stay for long because of the smell.
Mould and stains were found across the house, along with tiles people suspected to be asbestos.
Garbage was found across the property, and was allegedly being rented out in this condition.
When the user asked the property manager about the state of the house, they were told this was the state it would be rented in, with no effort to even clean some of the rubbish left on the floors.
“Real estate agents and landlords will charge as much as they can get away with,” Mr van den Lamb said. “It’s vanishingly rare to see a significant discount applied to a property based on its condition – and this is because of the way real estate agents price rental properties.”
Mr van den Lamb said many homes were priced based on CoreLogic reports that calculate price based on size, bedrooms and rental price in the nearby area.
“CoreLogic cannot take into account the actual condition of the property because this is not a data point that is uploaded,” he said.
Listing images of a Burwood, NSW – photoshopped to conceal the state of the unit.
A video of the property saw how stained and damaged the area really was.
The listing did not provide photos of the mouldy, cracked bathroom, which Mr van den Lamb said might be too difficult to photoshop.
The two-bedroom NSW unit at Burwood was advertised as “perfect for professionals [and] small families”; but hid how run-down it really was with some basic photoshop.
Mr van den Lamb’s coverage of the home was his most liked ‘Shit Rentals’ video on Instagram this year, where he compared the listing’s photos with a video inspection.
“The photos that they’ve used in the listing are actually really quite nice,” he said, “if you ignore the sink standing awkwardly there in the corner.”
Images of the kitchen show a unit in pristine condition.
The real kitchen has a grotty sink with brick-patterned wallpaper peeling off the back.
Beneath the sink is a damaged, mouldy floor, not at all made clear by the listing.
But the video showed the real state of the property, from a bedroom covered in stains to a bathroom covered in gaps and cracks in the wall.
Meanwhile, the kitchen was backed by wallpaper with a brick pattern, peeling off around the sink.
Mr van den Lamb said while it was illegal to use old images from a property for a new rental listing, he had not seen the government enforce it.
“Examples like this are unfortunately not outliers in the slightest,” he said. “It is extremely common for rental listings to use images from the last time the property was sold, which can easily be over 10 years old in many cases.”
A rental house at Coburg, which was one of the most upvoted rental posts on Reddit in 2025.
The bathroom alone is covered in holes and cracks in the wall, with one commenter saying renting a home in these conditions must be illegal.
The landlords for this Victorian property advertised the home online as a “charming” three-bedroom home, coming in at $500 a week – but photos showed anything but.
The rental at Coburg was found to have mould all across the carpets and walls of the property, when people went to inspect the three-bedroom house.
Photos also found an office desk being used for the kitchen bench, along with holes scattered across the bathroom wall.
A work desk was being used as a kitchen table, in place of proper amenities.
This was the description of the property that was called misleading. The listing was later taken down after public backlash.
This Victoria unit was one of the most upvoted posts on a rental subreddit this year.
“Would a desk for a kitchen bench 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 houses in this condition.”
“If you did live here for a year, you’d have paid $26,000 in rent,” Mr van den Lamb said on social media: the same price the home last sold for in 1981.
The home at St James, WA, was reported for having unlivable conditions the landlord wouldn’t address, such as dangerous floorboards sticking into the air.
A car jack could be found under the floorboards of the house, which looked like it was supporting part of the structure.
In Western Australia, a two-bedroom home in St James was submitted on the Shit Rentals website, described as an “absolute nightmare” by the tenant.
Pictures of the property showed floor boards jutting in the air, along with broken doors and damaged appliances like power outlets.
Cracks could be found in the walls, along with a car jack under the floorboards that seemed to be supporting part of the property.
Damaged power outlets were reportedly left ignored by the landlord, along with cracks along the walls of the house.
”Better off pitching a tent in the park,” the tenant said.
“Landlord doesn’t care,” the tenant wrote in their submission. “Maintenance has been the majority of the issue, nothing but the bare minimum to keep a roof over the tenant’s head. Better off pitching a tent in the park.”
Mr van den Lamb said he has not seen any successful action to curb investors putting risky properties up for rent.
“Unsafe rental units are definitely not decreasing,” he said. “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 property at Norwood, SA, at the time it was submitted to Reddit.
The landlord had reportedly raised the rent on the home by $100 a week after the old tenants moved out, without fixing any of the home’s issues.
Another submission found on the rentals database was sent from a South Australian renter, who said the landlord tried to take them to tribunal over damage she herself had ignored.
The three-bedroom house at Norwood saw termite damage across the property, which the tenant said had led to a collapsed floor.
Meanwhile, photos showed a leak in the house, which the tenant said was one of several that caused black mould to form along the floor and walls.
Mr van den Lamb said if government intervention doesn’t take place to help lower rents, tenants would need to organise collective action to fight for better conditions.
“Only a few weeks after moving out … new tenants were put in and rent increased by $100 [per] week,” they said. “After I reached out to the new tenants it was confirmed the structural issues STILL exist. Another cycle of exploitation and not feeling safe and comfortable at home.”
The tenant said they were taken to tribunal over a window pressure crack they had not caused, but the landlord ended up losing their case and returning the tenants’ bond.
“In order to lower rent we’d have to see government intervention like we’ve seen in the ACT or around the world,” Mr van den Lamb said, “or tenants will have to get organised.”
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