Apologies if this is long but don?t want to dripfeed. DD has asked if I could post to see if anyone can advise please?
DD (age 22) and her BF (age 23) have been travelling recently. When they were in NZ, knowing that they planned to stay and work for a while in Sydney, they looked online for ways to stay cheaply. They found a website EasyRoomMate and through that found a room to rent in an apartment block in Ultimo.
The woman renting the room lived in the apartment but was not there much as she worked as a nanny and lived in several days a week. She sent them messages re rent, bond, etc, and they have screenshots of these. When they arrived they found the location and facilities were good and the woman offered them a 2 week trial so they went ahead and at the end of that time paid a bond of 2 weeks rent. She did not give them a receipt for their bond but told them that, when they arranged a leaving date, she would not charge for their last 2 weeks (again they have a screenshot of this).
Over the couple of months they stayed there they began to feel more and more uneasy as this woman and her friends who came round there drank heavily, smoked a lot and took large quantities of recreational drugs. Eventually DD asked about return of the bond, first she told DD she needed to borrow some money to pay them back, then when DD's BF asked her again some days later she flipped, became hysterical, aggressive and threatening to the point the police had to be called as she threatened to stab DD. The police told DD and BF they could do nothing but advise them to leave, said she had assured them they would be safe to collect their stuff and the police left, at which point a large male friend of hers turned up and assaulted DD's BF. The police are aware of this and have made a report but have taken no action as DD and BF were leaving Oz shortly (they cut their stay short as they had no money to stay after not getting their bond back!)
They have since found out that this woman is subletting illegally and has ripped off travellers previously by retaining deposits unfairly. EasyRoomMate are not interested.
Should they just chalk this up to experience or is there anything they can do? Is it worth contacting Fair Trading? Obviously they would like their money back but even if that is unlikely they would be happy to stop her ripping off anybody else. They are also concerned that someone who swigs alcohol from a bottle before going to work and can 'flip' the way she did with them is looking after children but don't know her employer (if anyone reading this has an Eastern European nanny and has concerns, pm me!)
Sorry for the huge post. Any advice appreciated