We rented an unfurnished house for a couple of years when we had a problem with an 'establishment' (tarts, drugs, LOUD music until 4am 7x362, threats and violence) neighbouring our own flat in what was once a good area of Larnaca.
Our landlords were a pleasant couple with who we got on very well. With our landlords permission we decorated the property, made good unsafe electrical wiring and tidied up an unkempt garden at our own expense. We paid the rent in cash without fail on the first of each month and had paid three months rent in advance as a deposit. As a business transaction it was all very straight forward with our landlords always giving us a receipt for rent paid. We enjoyed living in their house and came to regard the landlords as good friends, so much so that when our landlady was away the landlord was suddenly taken ill with heart trouble we took him into hospital and stayed until we were assured that he was going to make it.
The house was fairly old and suffered some damp but we never complained about it just painting over the staining at the end of each winter. We did offer to buy the place but understandably our landlords did not want to sell as the property was promised to one of their daughters. Eventually after almost four years and no end in sight to the problems with our own flat we decided that rather than continue to pay rent we would buy another property. After finding what we wanted we gave our landlords three months notice of our intention to quit their property (contract specified one month), they took it very well and seemed to be happy for us, in turn we offered to show prospective tenants over the house while we were still living in the place as property sometimes looks better furnished. In all I guess we must have shown some twenty prospective tenants over the house and we always spoke highly of our landlords, eventually a young Cypriot couple with a couple of children decided to rent the place but under certain conditions, new kitchen and bathroom taps different paint colour schemes etc. This was when our troubles started our landlord turning extremely nasty saying that we had destroyed the place (OK the taps were only twenty years old! and the original white and magnolia colour scheme that we had continued with is not to everyones taste) and that because of us he was having to spend a lot of money! Our landlady was extremely embarrassed by her husbands attitude and dared only to speak to us when her husband was out as he was in a constant rage over our leaving.
We had some difficulties in getting our deposit back and a lawyers letter was required. Fortunately we had kept all of our rental receipts and had on the advice of my Cypriot wife's brother photographed the place before we moved in and when we finally moved out. The final two straws came when our landlord claimed that we could not remove our satellite TV system as we had allowed him at his own expense (about £15!) to take a feed from our decoder and that we should pay the municiple charge to him in advance as he could not trust us to pay our share after we moved despite him having our new address and telephone number! I will not write here all that I said but I did mention that I might just forward all of our rental receipts for 'cash' paid to the local tax office as I knew that as a low income earner with only a couple of other rental properties he received free medical treatment. This seemed to settle the matter as his attitude changed straight away and once again my landlord was his pleasant self. I apologised to his wife for my anger and the veiled tax threat but she just laughed and said that her husband had got all he deserved.
Some months later my former landlord phoned to say that he had received the municiple tax invoice and could I drop around to settle the account with him which I did but only only after receiving a receipt. He then told me that his new tenants were two months in rent arrears and would not contribute their share of the municiple tax, naturally and as you would expect I sympathised with his financial problems while enjoying a cup of coffee at his expense
