TL;DR - What kind of reduction in rent would you ask for where multiple bedrooms are unfit for living in, so you're using the living room to sleep in instead?? Ideally as a percentage, but there's detail below you can extrapolate from to come up with a dollar amount if that's your jam.
Backstory:
Went to a rental inspection for a 5 bed, 2 living room, 1 study house on a big block for $650/week - a little at the high end of our budget, but doable. On the day,all the windows were open and the ducted cooling was going full blast - it was hot that day, so we thought nothing of it (though the heat wasn't the reason for the windows/cooling). There was some pretty wild staining on the carpets in a few rooms, like someone had cut a pen in half and flicked it everywhere - big blue ink stains. We figured perhaps the carpets hadn't been cleaned yet.
Fast forward to key pickup, move in and entry report day - we should have not moved in, took the keys back and said "no thanks" that day, but we were getting desperate to be out of the prior rental because we didn't have long before our 90 days was up (owner wanted to sell) - hindsight is a bitch.
The entry report didn't mention any damage or issues - I'm used to this as a renter, I just make sure to be super thorough with my report, photos, videos, details, the whole 9 yards, then as I complete a room, things get moved in to it by the rest of the family - easiest way around it when you've got a 5 person family to move and not long to do it.
I get to the upstairs bedroom and open the door to what smelled like a men's room at a pub that hadn't been cleaned for a while. Genuinely smells like a well used, stale urinal in there and there's a heap of faint "puddle" stains that you generally don't see when it's well lit, but the carpet is dry (don't ask how I know). The ink staining is still very present, but far from the main issue after the smell.
I call the agent (at about 4pm on a Friday by the way) and give them the "hey, uh, what's this about?" And they respond by asking "which room? The one near the master smells much better than it did before"...
Firstly, what do you mean "which room?" (I'll get to that) And secondly, even more what do you mean "it's better than it was"??
I argue with them for about 30 mins that it's not acceptable to expect anyone to use that bedroom at all - they deny the smell is as bad as I claim, but backpedal when I tell them it's human urine. I eventually get "we want to make sure you're happy, if we send someone out to steam clean it, will that make you happy?" - I told them that if it got rid of the smell, then yeah, I'd be happy, but if it didn't remove it, I wouldn't be happy and I'd be following up - got told they'll organise someone to come out asap and I continue my entry report.
As I continue, I find that one of the other upstairs bedrooms has the same issue - sure, it's not as bad as the other room, but bad enough that you can't stay in there for more than 5 minutes, let alone sleep in there.
Carpet cleaning guy calls on Monday and is able to come out that afternoon - turns up with a glorified Britex machine (not a steam cleaner) and spends a solid 90 minutes cleaning the carpet within in inch of its life - the poor guy really tried his best, but it still stinks and he leaves.
I report this to the REA and initially get nothing as a response.
I go back to the old rental a couple days later to let Electrodry in to do the carpets there and talk to the guy - he seems to think that if the smell is still coming through, the floor beneath the carpet/underlay is probably affected and there's no guarantees that any cleaning they can do will get rid of the smell of human urine in the carpet - it probably needs to be replaced. I report that information to the REA as well.
We've since discovered that during warmer weather, the master and downstairs bedroom will occasionally get a whiff of the urine smell in certain areas - it sucks, but we run scented air fresheners 24/7 to mask it.
I email the REA again a fortnight later, detailing everything, including details of the phone conversation on key pickup date and everything that has happened since. I get a "thanks for your detailed email, we'll pass your feedback on to the owner" reply and nothing after that for a few weeks - either they didn't read the entirety of the email or they agreed with everything it said, cause I didn't hear anything other than that in reply for a while. I send weekly emails asking for updates on what they're going to do about the two rooms that we can't use at a minimum to no reply.
We end up talking to the neighbours who knew the family that lived here previously - story goes that they had two highly autistic children that were mostly non-verbal, both of which were in each of the "bad" bedrooms and would spend extended period in their rooms to a point where they'd climb out the windows and sit on the roof - the neighbour would see this and come banging on the door to let parents know. Apparently they were in nappies and didn't really learn to use the toilet, even as they got older. Mum was home alone a lot as dad worked long hours, it was suggested that the mum had a hard time doing a lot of it on her own and had potentially left the kids in their rooms for extended periods when she couldn't cope. Horrible situation to be in, but explains the source of the smell. The REA didn't outright go into that kind of details, but mentioned previous tenants had some "problem children that caused it".
A few weeks later (we've been there 6 weeks at this point), we get notice to say that the owner intends to sell - obviously they have to honour our lease till Feb '27, so it is what it is, but obviously the owner has given up and doesn't want to deal with the Toilet Room™ situation.
I hear from the selling agent who wants to come and take photos for the listing and arrange inspection dates - I fill them in on the above. They ask to come by to see what I mean for themselves as they hadn't heard anything about it when hired to sell the place. She comes in, I open the door to the Toilet Room™, she doesn't even step in to it, almost vomits and walks away - similar reaction to the other room.
She agrees that it can't be shown in that condition to sell and that she would let the owner know about the things that need sorting out before she could sell it.
Fast forward a while more and I've had a guy around today to measure and quote for new carpet per the REA's instructions - I'm sure that even if they're happy to pay for new carpet, it's possible they'll wait till we move out to install it.
I hate that it took for multiple third party reports to admit to the smell and that it took for a realtor come to look at it for them to eventually even ask for a measure and quote on carpet. We have our first inspection coming up next week and it's not our PM, but apparently it's their dedicated inspection specialist - I hope she chokes when we open the door.
Anyway, I will be putting in a claim for a rental reduction - first thing I need to ask, how much of a reduction do we ask for when 2 bedrooms are unusable and neither can we use one of the living rooms for its intended purpose since it's now being used as a bedroom (but without the usual privacy a bedroom affords)??
Secondly, what's the best course of action to take in pushing for a reduction?
Thanks for reading my dissertation in why renting sucks.