A nightmare landlord set up camp in a tenant's garden before texting the furious occupants telling them 'I am the owner.'
The couple, who had lived at the home for two months together with their three children, said their Christmas had been ruined after the 'traumatic' experience.
They said 'nobody can help' after landlord Pascale Hubert and her partner pitched a tent in the back garden on Christmas night and refused to leave, A Current Affair reports.
Tenants Nicky and William had been living in the rented home in Yamba, New South Wales, Australia.
The couple lost their jobs because of Covid-19 but when Nicky found work at a hospital on the NSW north coast, they signed a lease for a rental at $560 a week.
Nicky said she received a shock text from her landlord at Christmas after living at the house for two months.
She said: "Our children are terrified, they keep asking, 'who are they?' and we can't give them any answers.
"The text message said, 'Dear Nicky and William, I am the owner' … there was no names, no introductions, anything like that and it just said, 'as of tonight I will be occupying the rear yard'."
The tenants returned home to find that their landlord and her partner had set up a tent at the back of the property.
They went on to record a heated exchange between the landlord's partner, who said 'listen here, s*** for brains, I've given you a warning, move that frigging car now, you are in big s***.'
The husband of the landlord also dragged a trampoline out of the back garden and installed gate reinforcements.
William said of the ordeal: "I noticed they've got a bucket, been doing poos and wees in the bucket.
"It's disgusting. I just want to know where they're emptying it. They've got to empty it somewhere, don't they?"
The tenants went on to say that local police and real estate bodies 'don't know what to do.'
Nicky added: "We can't contact council because of Christmas, but it's day 11 of them living in the backyard.
"When I questioned the real estate, she said, 'the owners don't live here'. They just wanted to access the shed for storage but would give adequate notice.
"Regardless of them being able to access the back shed, they need to give us at least seven days' notice to come access the property - let alone camp in it.
"The police are telling us that the real estate should be physically removing these people and the real estate are saying they can't do that."
Reportedly, the property's backyard is not included in the lease rented through First National Yamba.
Landlord Pascale went on to suggest that they were there to stay and said: "At the end of April we're not going to take a tenant anymore and we're just going to start building."
