Tenants paying high rent for house split in half now face eviction amid housing crisis

A hearing-impaired widow who was knocked back from 300 rental applications before finding a place to stay is now facing eviction in a stunning example of Australia's housing crisis.

"We are currently searching at the moment to get somewhere else. I'm really dreading the process again after last time," 62-year-old Carolyn Warke told A Current Affair.

"It's pretty degrading actually. (It's) mission impossible."

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But the circumstances of Warke's current rental are just as staggering.

Warke said she responded to an advertisement for a three-bedroom home in the Melbourne suburb of Narre Warren South.

Upon inspection, she discovered that the landlord had split the house in half so he could rent out each side of it to a different set of tenants.

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Warke lives in one half of the house, while Nicci Guttery and her niece Kelly live in the other half.

"I think it's terrible considering he's just split the house into two with some dodgy shelves. It's appalling," Kelly's partner Steve said.

A Current Affair approached the landlord Ramandeep, also known as Raman Dhaliwal, who declined to answer our questions.

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According to Warke, the landlord had attempted to build a bungalow on the property to attract a third tenant.

"He even asked me if I knew somebody else would be interested in taking over that bungalow," Warke recalled.

There are also questions about the state of the property.

Despite a large satellite dish on the roof, the property doesn't receive a television signal in Warke's part of the dwelling and there are unfixed holes in the wall.

An old brick garage has been converted into two bedrooms and a corrugated plastic sheet divides the yard.

"It looks like a Meccano set," Warke said of the partition.

"I feel like we're being ripped off really badly. There's been massive problems with the property," she added.

Warke works night shifts at a local meatworks and often finishes at 5am to afford the rent of $450 per week.

Guttery and her family pay $445, plus electricity bills.

A Current Affair has found a record of when the property was rented as a single dwelling in 2021 for $380 a week.

Earlier this month, Dhaliwal issued both Warke and Guttery with a 60-day notice of eviction.

Neither party has found a new property to move to.

"I don't know what we're going to do," Guttery said.

"There's three kids in the house. We can't put them out on the street."