Pests across a tenancy
- 01
Moving in“All Queensland rental properties must meet minimum housing standards.” To meet them, the RTA says, the property manager or owner must make sure the property is free of pests when the tenant moves in.
- 02
During the tenancyThe same duty runs for the length of the tenancy agreement. It does not apply where the pests are there because of the tenant’s actions. The tenant, for their part, should tell the manager or owner as soon as possible on becoming aware of vermin in the home.
- 03
Moving outThe tenant must make sure the property meets the same standard it met when they moved in. The RTA’s general rule for the end of any tenancy is the same: the property goes back in the condition it was in at the start, “apart from fair wear and tear.”
Four things an owner cannot require
The RTA lists what the property manager or owner cannot require the tenant to do:
- 01
“leave the property in a better condition than it was in at the start of the tenancy (e.g. require pest control when the property had pests when they moved in, or require professional pest control if this was not done at the start)”
- 02
“use a specific pest control service”
- 03
“pay a set fee for a pest control service”
- 04
“use a particular pest control product”
Then a short sentence: “These are offences under the Act.” The Act is the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008.
Carpets follow the same rule
The RTA’s page covers carpet cleaning beside pest control, under the same end-of-tenancy rule. When the carpets were cleaned to a set standard as the tenancy began, they must be cleaned to that standard again at the end, and that is the tenant’s job. Nor can the manager or owner ask the tenant to hand the property back better than they found it, to buy goods or services (“e.g a carpet cleaning or pest service”), to use a specific carpet cleaning service, or to pay a set fee for carpet cleaning.
When a lease asks for pest control at the end
Can a tenancy agreement carry a special term about professional pest control at the end? Whether it is appropriate, the RTA says, “depends on the case and circumstances”, and it describes two cases.
- 2018
A prosecutionIn March 2018, the RTA won a prosecution against a property management agency over breaches of the Act, among them “unlawful conditions in tenancy agreements that required tenants to have carpets and curtains professionally cleaned at the end of a tenancy.” The penalty was $6,000, with a further $2,500 for unlawfully entering a tenant’s home.
- 2019
An appealIn a 2019 appeal case at QCAT (the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal ), a special term was found enforceable. The property had been fumigated, and its carpets professionally cleaned, at the start of the tenancy. The term asked the tenant, at the end, to have the carpets professionally cleaned and the premises fumigated by a professional fumigator, and it was considered essential to returning the property to the same condition. The tenant had kept four inside dogs and a budgie, and had tried to do the carpet cleaning and fumigation themselves.
The RTA adds that QCAT saw the special conditions as amplifying the Act and the General Tenancy Agreement, not as meant to modify them. And it records the Magistrate’s caution that the position may have been different had the carpets not been professionally cleaned at the start, because a tenant is only required to hand the property back “as far as possible, in the same condition that it was in at the start of the tenancy, fair wear and tear excepted.”
It turns on the first day
Read together, the RTA’s rules and its 2019 case come back to the condition of the property when the tenancy began. In the 2019 case a term for professional work at the end stood where professional work had been done at the start; and requiring professional pest control that was not done at the start is on the RTA’s list of things an owner cannot ask.
Pets and pest control
A tenant may agree to the property manager or owner’s reasonable conditions about carpet cleaning and pest control as part of having a pet approved. For how best to comply with those conditions, the RTA points to its own fact sheet on renting with pets.