In australia certain listings exist that track tenant behaviours against rental tenancy agreements. These are set up specifically to service property owners and agents. As such, they are completely partial to those owners and agents and often records act quite judiciously against them.
What I suggest is a simple, user edited web page that allows tenants to log their experiences of particular property owners and landlords, so that tenants may also have a database available to them to check before they enter into a lease agreement with effectively an unknown person/entity.
Of course, there will be a lot of emotional and anecdotal information skewed in favour of the tenant but a least the information would be there for the prospective tenant to make their own decision. of course, constributors would be encouraged to make comment in line with relevant tenancy legislation to assist with the factual value of the edits, which would also be made available on the site for use by contributors.-- williamsmatt, Oct 06 2008 New Orleans Landlords Database: Bad Landlords http://www.freewebs...umID=2210004&page=1A small, local forum attempting this. But you're right, there's surprisingly few of them! [jutta, Oct 06 2008] Halfbakery: landlord application landlord_20applicationDifferent idea in a similar area. [jutta, Oct 06 2008] does anyone in australia actually want to try and set this up with me?-- williamsmatt, Oct 06 2008 I hope you get this done! +-- daseva, Oct 06 2008 Great idea. Finding out before is always better than after signing the 12 month contract...-- superjohn, Oct 06 2008 I'm assuming that it would be a wiki-type site? I like the idea, and it would be better if landlords and tenants were on the same database for cross-referencing. It would be a huge task in administration, I would think.-- jetgrrl, Oct 07 2008 [UB] It ain't defamation if it's true.-- nomocrow, Oct 07 2008 Ther are several incarnations of the Do-Not-Engage-With-*x* website. They all suffer from the Michael Moore Documentary Syndrome (MMDS).
MMDS definition:
1. A belief is broadcast. ( I deliberately do not call this an interpretation)
2. A percentage, x, agree with this belief.
3. A percentage, y, don't agree with this belief.,
4. A percentage, z, are ambivalent.
x, y, z all follow normal distribution curves across the population. You cannot change x and y, and so you are fighting for the soul of z. Within z there is a distribution curve that allows for people to be swayed by your argument, not swayed by your argument, and those still ambivalent. The goal is to sway the most z towards your argument. By providing only one side of the story (a la M. Moore) it is more likely for individuals in z to find against your belief. eg. GW Bush in power.
Most people would like the balanced facts of the matter, in order to decide. Just like a court of law. Mens rea and actus reus. By providing actus reus only, you may exclude the thinking population. Of which most are, likely, good tenants.-- 4whom, Oct 07 2008 4whom is quite correct, although could have simply stated that the majority of posters will write negative information on such a site.
Providing a balanced discussion on such a website would be far more difficult, and until it is possible to track housing interactions directly to internet avatars, the full story would be difficult for a strictly user-based website to produce.
The website could probably protect itself with a simple "The views and statements found on this website are provided by external users, and does not necessarily represent the views and statements held by the creators of this website." They would then only need to occasionally remove one or two posts when challenged by a landlord.-- ye_river_xiv, Oct 07 2008 //They would then only need to occasionally remove one or two posts when challenged by a landlord//
alternatively, amend the wording of the complaint to reflect the nature of the complaint in line with legal regulations for tenancy law. if its a legitimate complaint it stays, if its defamatory it goes.
this editing requirement would put up significantly the overhead for administering the system significantly and was something I was hoping to avoid, in thinking the site would be free. maybe it has to be user pays eventually?-- williamsmatt, Oct 08 2008 Maybe you should have a "positive reviews only" policy. So if the business practices of a large landlord are bad, it will be obvious by the lack of reviews, but there are no grounds for a lawsuit.-- Bad Jim, Oct 09 2008 landlord tenants police firemen social worker teacher bus driver mailman ups truck furniture movers plumbers religious zombies birthday party guests pool inspectors roofer ambulance drivers thieves pedophiles newspaper deliverers. They all could use a database or application.
Not to mention dogs cats birds.-- popbottle, Jan 19 2016 random, halfbakery