Practical resource explains people’s rights
Tenants Victoria’s new Rooming House Residents Handbook is a handy aid to protecting the rights of people who live in rooming houses.
It’s a step-by-step guide to people’s rights when they move into a rooming house, while they live there and when they move out.
The handbook will also be printed in a convenient pocket format for distribution via our Rooming House Outreach Program to people who live in rooming houses. ‘What I appreciate about our booklet is how simple the language we use is. This makes it really accessible to the wide range of people who live in rooming houses,’ said Catherine Dyer, Tenants Victoria’s rooming house outreach worker.
Rooming houses often operate in apartments or houses, with living areas converted, or even subdivided, into bedrooms.
Residents may not even realise they are living in a rooming house – the accommodation may look like share houses but is different from them because the rooming house operator decides who lives at the property and usually has individual agreements with each resident for paying rent.
The Tenants Victoria Rooming House Residents Handbook explains how to know if you are living in a rooming house and the rules the rooming house operator needs to follow.
We hope this will be a useful resource for this part of the renting community. Remember, our key message to all people who rent their homes is that you have rights!