A frustrated cleaner has expressed her anger towards a real estate agent after being asked to return to a property to deal with an issue involving an unused dishwasher still covered in its protective plastic.

Fiona Morris, the founder of the Better Clean Team, was asked to perform a routine end-of-lease clean at a rental in NSW last week. 

Her cleaning team was asked to revisit the same property a few days later because the agent insisted that the tenant’s deposit would be withheld unless a ‘white sticky residue’ — which was actually the dishwasher’s protective covering — was cleaned off the appliance’s door.

Ms Morris claimed she was ‘done with real estate [agents] forever’, in a video shared to her Cleaning Biz Coach TikTok account. 

“So next up on the ‘we’ll take your deposit unless you rectify this’ list: this dishwasher hasn’t been used even once,” she explained.

‘What they peeled off, they just left on the bench. That’s acceptable but this here is not. You ready, Mr Real Estate, you f***ing wombat. 

‘She’s never used the f***ing dishwasher.’

Ms Morris then proceeded to peel off the protective plastic film on the dishwasher’s door and the contentious mark disappeared.

Ms Morris, who has more than 30 years of experience cleaning rentals, said it was an example of how landlords lose good tenants. 

‘You might think I am ranting and raving but imagine you’re this tenant and you live this clean,’ she continued. 

“Then, as a tenant, you feel so anxious about the authority the agent and landlord have over your living space that you get called back for something you haven’t even used,” she remarked.

Ms. Morris shared that she had inquired with the tenant about not using the dishwasher, to which the tenant confessed she was ‘too afraid’ to operate the appliance due to the behavior of the real estate agent and landlord.

Aussies praised the cleaning business for calling out the real estate agent, with many sharing similar horror stories from their end-of-lease cleans. 

One claimed they were called back because the dishwasher was not left ‘clean enough’ despite having installed the appliance themselves.   

‘Our rental didn’t have a dishwasher and we installed a Bosch dishwasher. We left it when we left as we bought a house with a dishwasher, they complained that it wasn’t clean enough so we went back and removed it from the house and took it to the tip.’

‘Our real estate [agent] took some of our bond as there were leaves left on back patio. We did sweep, hose and clean our back patio, but wind kept blowing in leaves, which was out of our control,’ a second person wrote.

A third person, who works as an end-of-lease cleaner, said they had issues with their agent because the vertical blinds were out of alignment. 

‘When I left my last rental after six years, they couldn’t pick the cleaning… so they tried to take my bond for a vertical blind that was out of alignment,’ they wrote. 

‘I returned and ‘rectified’ it (clicked the blind back into place). Agent returned and pushed them all back out of alignment. 

‘Almost had to go to court to get my bond back. It’s actually ridiculous.’ 

A fourth person wrote: ‘How come real estate agents will pick on the smallest bit of dust but I’ve never moved into a clean rental’.

Other renters advised renters to lodge a bond refund on the website Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA) website as soon as the keys are handed back. 

‘Always lodge your bond return the minute you return the keys and leave the agent. It’s more difficult for them to make a claim on the bond,’ one person said. 

‘The minute you hand your keys back to the real estate [agent], request your bond back on RTA website. That way THEY have to fight for the bond back because you got to the refund first,’ a second person argued. 

‘This is why I always, always lodge my bond refund as soon as I hand my keys back and if they don’t agree they have to dispute it,’ a third said. 

‘When you tell the RTA the ridiculous stuff they pick at you’ll always win. I’ve never lost my bond because of this.’