Opinions on RTB video of attempted eviction by a landlord

[Saturn]

Well said Cantillon: https://www.irishtimes.com/business...omplaints-are-proof-public-bodies-cannot-win/

Or, as my mother would have put it, "would yiz have a titter of wit".

 

[Greenbook]

I think Cantillon is wrong here. The ads are just not funny and completely one sided - landlords bad, tenants good.

I do have a sense of humour about landlords. I think Lord Bill Badbody is hilarious and he gets up to far worse than the dodgy landlord of the RTB - stealing a child's piggy bank because the parents owed him rent, for example.

The ads show what the RTB thinks landlords are.

 

[Purple]

The male/female sterotyping is clear as well.

The female tenants are smart, savvy and articulate.

That's nothing new. Most advertising is aimed at women since they make most purchasing decisions so the whole industry is skewed that way. It used to be the other way around. Swings and roundabouts etc.

 

[Premos]

If they wanted to inform people, perhaps they could do a funny clip with a non payer renter, explaining the steps that the landlord should take to try to get the rent or to get the renter to leave. Or a funny one explaining to a messy renter how to leave a property in an appropriate state.

 

[LarryScott]

Or a funny one explaining to a messy renter how to leave a property in an appropriate state.

They could have the dodgy landlord crying in his ruined apartment and then cut to the tenants having a laugh about him at the pub? The message could be that you need to be careful that landlords don't unreasonably withhold the deposit.

 

[JamieB_]

I thinking it would be even more funny if they made a video of all the staff in the RTB sitting there reading their mission statement and laughing their heads off at it.

 

[Greenbook]

More evidence of the RTB's and, indeed, the Minister for Housing's attitude towards landlords from the Seanad yesterday

"As regards the first amendment relating to a workforce plan for the Residential Tenancies Board, I have great faith in the CEO there, Rosemary Steen. We have seen a big step up in challenging landlords who have not abided by the rules and who in some cases have acted disgracefully towards their tenants."

Absolutely nothing about challenging bad tenants. Only disgraceful landlords exist.

 

[lff12]

Do landlords really turn up at the tenant's door unannounced saying 'I want ye out next week lads'

It was common years ago. A landlord of mine (quite good actually) turfed out two fellas in two different flats and gave them 48hrs to hoosh. One lad had kicked in all the doors of his flat, and the fellow next door, and then tried to get into my flat on the top floor. (His sister lived next door, heard the racket and called him).
The other lad literally stank the place out, he literally had to replace the floor it was so bad.
In the third case a friend got turfed out on account of her sexuality. It was basically be out of here by tomorrow sort of thing.

That's why RTB exists unfortunately - these things were not at all unheard of up to 2004 before there was enforcement.

Anybody doing that now would be out of their minds. That said, the video is directed at tenants and by the looks of it young students, not your average landlord who you'd hope would actually be aware of the law before they take in tenants. The worst issues always were and continue to be lodger style scenarios where the tenants have no rights, not the more professional kind of rental of whole homes.

 

[lff12]

‘In response to the letter, Steen said the purpose of the campaign was to inform landlords and tenants about their rights and responsibilities under the law.

She said the campaign had used a “new approach to drive greater engagement with the campaign’s younger student audience” and had used “light humour to make important rental issues relatable for a younger audience” in some of the videos.

Did RTB actually do this themselves or get another company to do it? To be fair I heard horror stories of landlords just walking in years ago before there was enforcement. And when I started renting (which was in the 90s) I had no idea there were actually minimum standards (the reason PRTB came in was because councils were not doing any inspections). I heard stories of flats being rented without a fridge, and saw a few horrendous ones friends and acquaintances lived in.

A lot of the problem is the conflation between lodger style rentals where the tenants literally have no rights and professional whole unit rentals where there's a lot of regulation and it never stops changing. And unfortunately the reason it keeps changing is because of bad eggs who stuff bunks into a house or charge for things they shouldn't. And it doesn't help that there isn't urgency around hearings that would give both tenants and landlords more confidence in the system. Only about 2/3 of cases are tenant initiated now, about 1/3 are landlord initiated and generally for arrears and overholding.

If the question is whether its appropriate for RTB to use YouTube to reach out to tenants who might not know their rights?
I'd say probably not, although it definitely does need to be constantly reiterated to tenants that witholding rent is not within their rights, which I assume nobody is making YouTube videos about? The bigger issue seems to be tenants where english isn't their first language and especially those trying to get a rental here from abroad, and landlords are not really the biggest problem there, its outright scammers online.