Landlord left with £40,000 worth of damages after tenants from hell

A landlord has revealed she’d rather leave her home empty than have renters again after tenants caused £60k worth of damage.

Galina Manders, 50, has spoken out after she rented her three-bedroom family home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, with her husband and two children until they upsized in 2018.

She decided, rather than sell, to bring in tenants to their old house and rent it out to bring in some extra cash.

Everything went smoothly until a new set of tenants arrived in 2022, and Galina says they consistently stopped her from visiting the property when she asked to come and inspect it.

But a year later, a surveyor’s visit confirmed her worst fears – the property had blocked toilets, a ‘rat infestation’, rubbish ‘up to her knees’ on every surface, mould and damaged walls.

It took until March 2025 for her to evict the tenants as they refused to leave and became abusive, she claims.

They only vacated it after she brought bailiffs in – but then Galina was left with £60k of damage, £40k of which she had to pay out of her own pocket.

Accountant Galina said since the traumatic and costly experience, she will never bring in tenants – and she’d rather leave the home sitting empty, covering the mortgage payments herself.

She feels it’ll get even worse for landlords following the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Bill, which will see ‘no fault’ evictions abolished in a bid to protect tenants.

Mum-of-two Galina, originally from Yerevan, Armenia, said: ‘It took a long time to get rid of the smell, and the plumbers had to come in hazmat suits.

‘I had to remortgage the home again to cover the £40,000 of repairs – if the tenants had been the ones to pay, they would never have left it in that state. But they knew the law would favour them and used it to their advantage – and they were right.

‘I’d rather keep it empty and pay the mortgage myself than bring anyone else in.’

Galina put her original home on the market in 2018 and had two sets of tenants between 2018 and 2022 that caused her ‘minimal issues’, she said.

She then took on her third tenants in March 2022 – a couple via an agency, who she said had done background checks on them.

But the agency said she couldn’t know who they were until they moved in due to GDPR, according to Galina.

She visited the tenants at the home for the first time six months into their residence, where she said she noticed the home was ‘a bit messy but nothing too bad’.

She didn’t check up on them for another year until she asked a surveyor to visit, so she could get a better estimate on the house price to get a better deal on her mortgage.

Galina explained: ‘I then received pictures of the house in an absolute mess, saying he couldn’t even get upstairs to view the bedrooms.’

She then asked if she could inspect the property herself, but according to her, the occupants came up with excuses to stop her from seeing the property.

When she finally did see it in March 2025, she said the state of her former family home left her in tears.

She claims that when she asked the tenants to clean and tidy the home, they became abusive over WhatsApp, culminating in Galina blocking them.

In the end, in January 2024, she filed a section 21 no-fault eviction under the 1988 Housing Act, as the couple didn’t clean up the mess, and she couldn’t get proof of damage when they weren’t allowing her into the building.

She said she didn’t end up getting back into her home until March 2025, when she ended up employing bailiffs to get them out.

Months on, Galina has spent £40k – way over the estimated £30k – and the home is still in the process of being repaired.

She has vowed never to bring in tenants again as she feels landlords have no protection.

‘There are bad landlords, but there are bad tenants too – the same as there are good landlords and good tenants,’ Galina added. ‘I never thought it would come to this point.’

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