Tenant needed counselling after abusive tirade from landlord calling him 'crazy' and 'disgusting'

A tenant is seeking professional help after he was abused by his landlord in text messages. Photo / 123RF

A renter sought psychological help after he was verbally abused by his landlord, who called the man "crazy", "sick" and "disgusting".

But the landlord made a counterclaim in the Tenancy Tribunal, seeking damages from the tenant for "anti-social behaviour", alleging the tenant defamed him.

The tenant, who has name suppression, was granted $500 in compensation by the tribunal for the distress caused by the landlord and for temporarily being prevented from accessing his apartment.

The man was also awarded his bond of $1520.

The tenant told the tribunal he suffered panic attacks and depression after the landlord's "distressing" comments and was seeking psychological help for the stress as a result of the abusive behaviour.

Text messages provided to the tribunal outlined a tirade of abuse received by the tenant. One message from the landlord said: "You are out of your mind or sick".

During the hearing the tenant recounted how the landlord would speak to him claiming he was called "sick", "mentally ill", "crazy" and "disgusting".

The claims weren't denied by the landlord, who during the course of the hearing referred to the tenant as being "out of his mind".

"I find the landlord did use these words and that the tenant has suffered anxiety
and stress as a result," the adjudicator wrote in a recently released decision.

Access to the apartment was also an ongoing issue, and the tenant told the tribunal of an instance when he was unable to go inside his home for several hours because the landlord had failed to provide an external door key.

The tenant had repeatedly raised the issue of the missing key with the landlord over six months but he was never given a replacement.

"On the occasion that the tenant was locked out of his apartment, someone locked the external door and the tenant was unable to get in," the adjudicator said.

While he was locked out, the onsite property manager was told by the landlord not to unlock the door to the tenant, who then had to phone the police to get the co-operation of the owner to let him in.

The adjudicator found the landlord knew about the issue with property access and should have taken steps to address it.

The landlord attempted to terminate the tenancy over a claim of anti-social behaviour.

"The landlord referred to a single incident where the tenant expressed his view that the property manager was getting a 'kick-back' from the cleaner she recommended to the tenant," the adjudicator said.

"The concern was that the tenant would or had defamed the landlord. This was a single event and would not fall within the criteria of 'harassment or any act or omission that could reasonably cause alarm, distress or nuisance'."

The adjudicator dismissed the claim.