Sarah's story

By the time the first days of summer came around, Sarah had purchased a thermometer to monitor the temperature inside her apartment and consistently observed the indoor temperature being higher than that outside her flat. On one very hot December day, her unit reached 36.5 degrees.

Ahead of starting the final year of her law degree, Sarah moved into her one-bedroom apartment in Stanmore. She wanted a space of her own to focus on her studies. The place was well located and worth the $470 in rent, with an ensuite bathroom and a good living space layout. Sarah’s unit had a balcony but lacked a flyscreen on the doors leading out to it, making ventilation hard, especially at night. After requesting assistance from the agent, Sarah was pleased to learn that the landlord approved the flyscreen door to be installed. Things were looking up, and Sarah settled into her new home.

Throughout the first year in Stanmore, Sarah had no complaints and didn’t need to contact the agent about many major issues (apart from a broken seal in the bathroom, which was fixed), so when she was given the option to resign a lease, she did so, accepting a $20 rent increase at the same time.

Things started to change in the spring of 2024, when, along with much warmer weather, came a realisation that Sarah’s flat wasn’t such a great place to live in after all. Consecutive hot days were leading to the heat in the apartment accumulating, with not enough cross-ventilation to help lower the temperature overnight. Sarah tried to remediate the situation by keeping curtains drawn and closing windows to keep the heat out. She slept with the balcony door wide open and a pedestal fan running all night. But nothing she did was keeping her home cool enough for her to be able to sleep comfortably. On some nights, Sarah would only get a few hours of interrupted sleep, forcing her to take days off work. By the time the first days of summer came around, Sarah had purchased a thermometer to monitor the temperature inside her apartment and consistently observed the indoor temperature being higher than that outside her flat. On one very hot December day, her unit reached 36.5 degrees.

Exhausted by the heat and lack of sleep, Sarah decided to ask for assistance from her real estate agent; after all, they had been helpful before securing the flyscreen for her balcony door. She emailed detailing the measures she had taken to help reduce the temperature in her home and described the difficulty sleeping, forcing her to take refuge at her parents’ house sometimes 3 nights a week. She suggested an AC unit be installed, or at the very least, ceiling fans to help with ventilation. The agent didn’t seem optimistic about the prospect of the landlord investing in any upgrades to the property. Instead, she suggested Sarah invest in a portable air conditioner unit.
The back and forth over emails continued through December, with no decision from the landlord being communicated, and Sarah hesitating to buy an air conditioner that would be difficult to install in the vintage windows of her rental. Finally, at the end of January, halfway through the summer and many hot weeks later, Sarah received a reply from the agent. Her request for ceiling fans was denied, and her concerns about the heat and her inability to sleep were dismissed.

‘I understand it's hot however, we’re all struggling in the heat; the agent wrote,’ the heat is no fault of the landlords, and certainly no faults in the building are causing the heat."

Enraged by this lack of concern for the standard of the property and how objectively unlivable it was, Sarah decided to give up the fight and move out at the end of her lease. She would have preferred to stay close to the city, in her own space, but to struggle through the rest of the summer, pay even more in rent (the upcoming increase would take it up to $510/week), and be treated with no compassion or care by the real estate agent as well? It was too much to bear.

For now, Sarah moved back in with her parents before she and her partner could find a place together. She counts herself lucky to have this option, knowing how many women out there can’t afford to simply pack up and leave a place that’s not right for them. The experience also made her realise how much imbalance still exists in the relationship between the landlord and their tenant. Despite being a recent law graduate, aware of existing laws and confident to advocate for herself, she still ended up defeated by the system prioritising landlords' profits over renters’ right to safe and stable homes.