Guangzhou tenant plunges from 18th floor after Danke Apartment ‘withheld rent’ to landlord: report
A tenant who rented a room through cash-trapped Danke Apartment agency in Guangzhou plunged from his 18th floor unit, after his landlord demanded that he move out, according to a mainland Chinese report.
It remains unknown whether the tenant died or survived the fall that took place at Tianhe Square Unit in the Guangdong capital on Thursday, according to the report posted on video-sharing platform
pearvideo.com.
His room was one of four subdivided units inside an apartment on the 18th-floor. A roommate called police after noticing dense smoke coming from the tenant’s room, the report said.
The landlord last week put up a notice on the flat’s main door demanding that tenants move out within one week. The landlord claimed that the Danke agency had not paid him the rooms’ rents, the roommate was quoted as saying.
Danke, one of China’s leading online rental platforms, leases flats that it rents from landlords. Tenants usually pay a lump sum amounting to one year’s rent to Danke, which then pays the landlords on a monthly basis.
The latest case came amid widespread speculation about severe financial problems at Danke, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
For the second time in a month, dozens of landlords and tenants protested outside Danke’s headquarters earlier this week to demand refunds or compensation.
In a separate incident, a crowd of about 100, mostly young people who have rented flats through Danke, gathered at its Shanghai office about two weeks ago to demand refunds, only to find that no employees were present in the office.
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