Landladies caught spying on tenents

Hack

Scary. anyone know any of these students?

Landladies ordered to pay students €115,000 in damages
Simon Carswell

Two Dublin landladies have been ordered to pay damages totalling more than €115,000 to 10 students who were tenants in their house after the Circuit Court found they had kept the students under secret electronic surveillance.

The tenants, from Mayo, Galway, Donegal, Armagh and Monaghan, rented rooms in 46 Mobhi Road in Glasnevin from Rita McKenna and her daughter, Edel, in 2003 and 2004 while studying at the nearby colleges, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin City University and St Patrick's College in Drumcondra.

The students became concerned in late 2004 that their conversations and activities were being monitored when the McKennas referred to details the students had discussed in private in the house. When they raised the issue with the McKennas, the students were evicted.

One tenant, Patricia Hegarty, brought a case against the mother and daughter in 2004, which was later settled out of court. Ten more tenants of the McKennas subsequently sued them for breach of privacy. The case was heard last Thursday and Friday, and on Monday of this week.

Judge Gerard Griffin yesterday found that the evidence in the case left him "in no doubt whatsoever that the defendants had kept these plaintiffs under electronic surveillance".

The judge said he could not say whether it was audio or video surveillance or both, but he was concerned that yellow wires found in the house were of the international standard used for video recording.

The wires were found during a search on December 3rd, 2004, when Ms Hegarty's solicitor and a garda called to the house on the back of a court order. Solicitor Fergus Gallagher and Garda Alan Sherlock found themselves locked out of the house by the McKennas when they arrived.

The judge said the evidence of Mr Gallagher and Garda Sherlock left him with the "inescapable conclusion that both defendants set out to obstruct and nullify the order of this court, as I find that their conduct has no other rational explanation".

The students paid €80 a week for a shared room and €90 for a single room, and an extra €5 for a meter-operated television. The McKennas lived in a separate part of the house. Nine bedrooms in the property were rented out, mostly to students.

The judge said the tenants were "unceremoniously evicted with less than four hours' notice and left to their own devices with their belongings in black bin bags and boxes".

He found the students' rights to privacy had been infringed and he awarded them damages varying from €7,500 to €12,500 each.

© 2007 The Irish Times

leninbenjamin

heard about this on the radio this morning... about time someone told some of the landlords in this country where to go. I'd say there could well be more cases like this emerging in the future...

cooperguy

€80 a week for a shared room:eek: Dear god im so happy I dont rent in Dublin!

dodgyme

cooperguy wrote: »

€80 a week for a shared room:eek: Dear god im so happy I dont rent in Dublin!

and to be spied on when you have you cacs off, now that is dear!

xzanti

cooperguy wrote: »

€80 a week for a shared room:eek: Dear god im so happy I dont rent in Dublin!

And that was three years ago :eek:

WindSock

Ha. Psychos. They should check that the older lady isn't dead.

watna

I wonder did they have cameras in their bedrooms as well? Surely they could be ridiculed as voyeurs and perverts then..... dirty old ladies!

Overheal

Theres an apartment block I stayed in last year... the year before that they were quick to uninstall about 1/2 of the security cameras in the hall because they had the capacity to peer into the apartment living spaces >( had it gone before I moved in though.

Sizzler

Why

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

prendy

i know lads that payed 90+ for a shared room in a kip in the city centre...thats bout 3 years ago.camden st i think.

Latchy

Wow. my eyes lit up reading the OP story because a few years ago we stayed in a B and B in glasnevin for 5 nights and found the Landladys behaviour very strange.We returned one day to our bed room to find that sombody had being going through our bags and belongings .It as only when we left that we found out the old lady was not registered to run a Bed and Breakfast and was only according to her words ' doing sombody a favour ' .Her creepy son was always lurking around the place and we felt as if we were being spied upon . We couldent wait to get out of the place

humanji

That's just normal behavior from glasnevin folk :P

ballooba

I don't know what they were complaining about. That website was subsidising their rent. Eh.. I mean... what website.

godtabh

latchyco wrote: »

Wow. my eyes lit up reading the OP story because a few years ago we stayed in a B and B in glasnevin for 5 nights and found the Landladys behaviour very strange.We returned one day to our bed room to find that sombody had being going through our bags and belongings .It as only when we left that we found out the old lady was not registered to run a Bed and Breakfast and was only according to her words ' doing sombody a favour ' .Her creepy son was always lurking around the place and we felt as if we were being spied upon . We couldent wait to get out of the place

Why wait 5 days? Surely you could have got some were else

Latchy

kearnsr wrote: »

Why wait 5 days? Surely you could have got some were else

We were on a budget and had paid up front in advance.We were out all the the days visiting and only returned in the evenings to basically sleep ,but it was a creepy place.

Gran Hermano

latchyco wrote: »

We were on a budget and had paid up front in advance.We were out all the the days visiting and only returned in the evenings to basically sleep ,but it was a creepy place.

And now you're a 'movie-star'
Have you checked to see if you're on IMDB under home-made adult movies?

philstar

fined 115 grand??.. thats a pretty serious smack on the hand

wonder will they be able to pay it off.

reckon they were doing it to keep an eye on the place, other than anything pervy...but either way it was wrong

redzerdrog

if it was an old man doing this he would jave got jail

Dudess

Hack wrote: »

When they raised the issue with the McKennas, the students were evicted.

What absolute bitches! I wonder what condition the house was in. Mobhi Road is gorgeous but the houses are quite old.

spurious

I hope the Revenue take a good look at them too.

kowloon

redzerdrog wrote: »

if it was an old man doing this he would jave got jail

Seconded, the old landlady element does rob the story of some of the sensationalist voyeur pervert appeal that the newspapers crave these days.

philstar

kowloon wrote: »

Seconded, the old landlady element does rob the story of some of the sensationalist voyeur pervert appeal that the newspapers crave these days.

begs the question.......can old ladies be perverts??

lostexpectation

was it not a paranoid landlord rather then perverted one...

dotsman

philstar wrote: »

begs the question.......can old ladies be perverts??

Personally, I find them (in general) to be more perverted than old men when they've had a drink or two in them!

Gran Hermano

philstar wrote: »

begs the question.......can old ladies be perverts??

You never see Harry Enfield's clips with the randy old grannies?
Just type harry enfield and old ladies into search on youtube.

I hope the two old pervy lady landlords have to sell their houses
to pay the fines.

Latchy

Gran Hermano wrote: »

And now you're a 'movie-star'
Have you checked to see if you're on IMDB under home-made adult movies?

We would have made boring viewing , but if we are we will sue for royaltys ....