Tenant, landlady clash over laundry: 'She asked me to pick up 2 strands of my hair in washing bay'

Talk about airing your dirty laundry.

A tenant has issues with her landlady and wants to know whether it is normal.

A fresh grad, Stomper Jan said she had moved in on Oct 30, 2023, and was renting a room for six months "due to family problems".

The landlords are an "old couple", but it's the "lady landlord" whom the Stomper cannot deal with.

Many of the issues have to do with the laundry.

The Stomper, who is Singaporean, said: "The lease agreement is $800 with aircon or $700 without aircon. That includes utilities and two times washing of clothes a week.

"However, as I don’t go home often my clothes are less and therefore every wash quantity, I’m wasting her utilities money. She threatens that if I continue to wash even with less quantity she will be charging me additional utilities.

"I was called selfish for washing my clothes even though they were less and did not schedule properly.

"I’m only working from home on Tuesday and Wednesday, which allows me to monitor my clothes while they're being dried outside as she does not help me to move them during wet weather."

Sometimes she was forced to hang her wet laundry in her room due to the lack of space.

She added: "Once, she knocked on my door after I washed my clothes to ask me to pick up two strands of my hair that fell at the washing bay."

But that was not all.

The landlady threatened to chase the Stomper out for forgetting to turn off my electricity before leaving for work, said the Stomper.

"I was required to buy my own floor mop, vacuum and other stuff to keep my room clean and can’t use the landlady's as she said that the other tenants and I do not take care of her items'.

"All these items are to be kept in our rooms as we are not allowed to use the common area to place our stuff because she doesn’t have enough space for us."

Then there is "some weird rule" about using the kettle.

"She wants us to pour the water immediately out after boiling and we have to 'air' it out so the kettle won’t turn 'cloudy' due to the water vapour," explained the Stomper, who decided to buy her own kettle for use in her room.

"She then sent me a WhatsApp message to say no cooking of food is allowed on the tenancy agreement and if I wanted to boil the water, I had to do it outside and keep it in my room immediately after."

To top it off, the Stomper added: "She had dashed into my room several times to tell me an unimportant matter when I was fully undressed. From that point on, I lock my room every time I’m home."

The Stomper is contemplating what to do next.

"I’m currently thinking whether I should pay for the last month's rental or just use the deposit to offset it as I’m sure she would find ways and excuses to deduct the deposit to compensate for items she felt was 'damaged' or charge me 'extra utility for washing clothes as per the agreement but in not enough quantities, which resulted in 'wasting utility bills'," said the Stomper, who wants to find if what she has been going through is normal.

"I would like to hear the opinions of other tenants and landlords whether such practices like keeping everything in the room and buying almost everything to the extent of mops and floor-washing detergent are standard."