‘A lot of landlords think they can walk all over you’

Orla Smith is still waiting for the return of her €650 deposit, more than two years after she left a property in which mould was ruining her clothes.

The 32-year-old from Rathfarnham in Dublin is studying to become a music teacher at IT Dundalk and first moved to the Louth town in summer 2010 with her boyfriend.

They moved into the property — and then quickly moved out again when the scale of the mould became apparent.

“My clothes were all damp, the mattress was damp, I lost items of clothing to mould.

“I had to get my stuff out there quickly and find another place immediately.”

What with moving her belongings from Dublin and then moving out three weeks later, Orla estimates she spent one full weekend in the property, and says she alerted the landlord to the problem.

His response was apparently aggressive.

Despite the case being heard by the PRTB last year — and a ruling that Orla’s deposit should be returned — the landlord has since told her “he has no intention of complying”.

“He tried to claim damage to his sofa but luckily we had taken video footage and photos to prove we left the place as we found it. We were lucky we did as otherwise I don’t know how the hearing would have gone.”

She has contacted the PRTB on a number of occasions asking what is being done, only to be told there is a backlog of cases.

It means she may have to consider bringing a case to the small claims court to get back what is hers — particularly as she took out a loan for the deposit in the first place and is still paying back the interest.

“What’s the point of having PRTB if they do less than courts provide?”

She has student friends in Dundalk experiencing their own problems, citing one case where a deposit was not returned due to the presence of cobwebs.

“They [some landlords] just presume the deposit is their money, but they’re only holding it, it’s your money. There’s a lot of them who think they can walk all over you and it’s time we said ‘no’.”