A huge thank you to everyone who has signed and shared the petition so far. Your support is appreciated and is already helping get this story out there.

Quick update on the property:

The insurance assessors refused to even step inside until I personally spent 4 days clearing out every last bit of the tenants’ belongings. That meant filling two skip bins (12m³ + 8m³) and then scrubbing and washing down every wall because the place was covered in cat shit (the smell was unbearable) and we found drug paraphernalia in two of the bedrooms. Only after that would the assessors finally attend.

Financially it’s been devastating:

• Rental arrears: $28,000+

• Legal fees: $13,000+

• Skip bins: $1,600

• Clean-up: $10,000

• Plus a quote of $28,000 just to repair and repaint the destroyed floors, carpet and walls.

On the brighter side, the new Victorian Government e-petition (sponsored by Tim McCurdy MP, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) should go live very soon. Because it’s sponsored by an MP it will be formally presented to Parliament, forcing the issue to be debated and (hopefully) leading to real legislative change.

The key ask is simple fairness: if tenants are more than one month in arrears, possession orders must be enforced with no further appeals allowed. No more endless delays, no more games, just basic consequences for not paying rent.

That’s honestly not much to ask in 2026 – it used to be the normal expectation, and it needs to be again.

I’ll post the live link here the second it’s up. If you haven’t signed the current one yet, every signature still counts, and please keep sharing.

Thank you again – we’re in this together.

This could easily be you, a family member, or any hardworking Victorian facing the same nightmare. The current system forces small landlords to subsidise tenants who simply stop paying rent. It’s time the government stopped enabling this imbalance and brought back basic fairness and accountability.

Dan Yeats