‘People are suffocating’: Property manager’s harrowing text lays bare WA’s housing crisis

A Perth property manager says both tenants and landlords are struggling under growing cost-of-living pressures, with the latest WA budget failing to provide a solution to the state’s housing crisis.

For Louisianna Giumelli, the crisis came to a head when she was heading to court to carry out a tenant eviction.

The text message.

Giumelli said the tenant was a “lovely, mature-aged subcontractor” who had fallen into financial crisis and had been unable to pay his rent for more than a year.

The real estate agency she owns, Choice Property Group, had tried to get him help through Anglicare WA and the tenant had also reached out to Centrelink with no luck. He then stopped replying altogether.

As she was driving to court to get the matter resolved, Giumelli received a text message read aloud through Apple CarPlay.

“I’m sorry but I can’t attend court today, I can’t cope with it, I’m also ending my life today goodbye.”

In shock, Giumelli pulled over and called triple zero.

Later she received another message from the tenant: “I’m sorry, I’m on my way to the hospital ... police and ambulance arrived just in time, I’m truly sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused.”

The incident pushed her to speak out on the crisis and call for more support for those in the real estate industry who were dealing with heartbreaking situations more frequently.

“Hardworking West Australians have been paying their taxes and doing all the right things – but they are not receiving any support,” she said.

“Mortgages and therefore rents are continuing to climb and so no one can help each other out.

“They have been put into an impossible situation by a government that is not stepping in to help.”

Giumelli said the 2025-2026 state budget handed down on Thursday last week was “disappointing” and proof government aid was lacking, with nothing included to support landlords or tenants in the immediate term.

“Building more houses might help ease the pressure on the market in five or 10 years’ time, but people are suffocating now,” she said.

Giumelli said the situation had only gotten worse over the past two years, and while she had only needed to call triple-zero once, she had also called for welfare checks and reached out to tenants’ emergency contacts for help.

“We’re only a small agency in the Perth Hills, which shows the scale of this crisis if we have noticed the changes,” she said.

“Everyone is feeling the cost of living crisis across Perth and often property managers are the only ones who know how bad a situation really is because people hide it from friends and family to avoid worrying them.”

Giumelli is calling for mental health resources for tenants navigating rental stress and homelessness, trauma training and support for property managers dealing with high-risk situations, and better government intervention to ease the housing crisis and stop preventable tragedies.

In response to questions from this masthead, Housing Minister John Carey acknowledged many households were dealing with global inflationary pressures, higher interest rates and supply chain disruptions.

But he said the government aimed to insulate households and families from those pressures through measures including the WA Rent Relief Scheme.

The program received a six-month extension in the budget and will now finish at the end of the year.

“The key to addressing pressures in the housing and rental market is more supply. Our Government has invested a record $5.8 billion in housing and homelessness measures, helping to boost supply and support vulnerable West Australians into housing,” Carey said.

“Data consistently shows our measures are working, with the rental vacancy rate increasing to 2.8 per cent in May compared to 0.5 per cent in May 2024.”

Carey said in June, the Real Estate Institute WA reported that the state had recorded its first improvement in housing affordability since the September 2023 quarter.

He did not respond to questions regarding what more could be done to ease pressures for landlords struggling with mortgages or for those weighed down by rental costs, or whether the Rent Relief Scheme needed to be extended past 2025.

Crisis support is available from Lifeline 13 11 14.

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