Landlord denies kidnapping tenants parrot

Ok are you sitting comfortably because I will say this only once I said ....I will say this only once.

Any landlords who have had tenants who they just can't get rid of will have often fantasized about dastardly ways of 'persuading' their tenants to leave.

Obviously, being good law abiding citizens we would never actually put these 'fantasies' into practice because this would be harassment and could end us up in big trouble.

I was amused to come across this recent story about a landlord who became so desperate to get his tenants out that he kidnapped Merlin their PARROT. Now reading between the lines it sounds like the parrot Merlin was more popular with the parents than the children.

Could it be that the landlord was just a bit of a 'bird' fancier?

What ever you do landlords Property Hawks advice to our fellow landlords is try not to ruffle a tenants feathers because it will only come back to bite them.

Apparently Merlin the parrot, who belongs to mother-of-three Sharon Dorrell, 47, was seized along with most of the family possessions after the family was locked out of their former home in Wharncliffe Road, Shipley.

Miss Dorrell said she was shocked to find landlord Dara Ram had changed the locks on the house when she went to visit her family in Worcester with 20-year-old son Josh, who has learning difficulties, daughter Charley, 13 and Paul, ten.

Mr Ram took the family’s pet rabbit, Flopsie, and Merlin, a three-year-old blue and gold Macaw, from the house when he repossessed the house.

Miss Dorrell said: “We just want Merlin back.

“We have had him since he was a chick with no feathers and fed him with a bottle.

“He’s like a baby to me, it is like they have taken a child away from me. Josh has been so hard to control and has started getting really aggressive since Merlin went and Charley has told people at school that the parrot was like a brother to her.”

Mr Ram told the Telegraph & Argus he took the rabbit and parrot from the house “for their own safety” as he feared the family would not return and denied he was holding the family to ransom. Mr Ram said the parrot had now escaped.

He said: “We were trying to feed it one day and it just flew out. I apologise but I was purely looking after its best interests.”

Miss Dorrell has now rented a house in Frizinghall, but she says she has been left with “nothing” as all her possessions and her children’s clothes are in her former home.

Mr Ram said Miss Dorrell was free to come and collect the rest of her property.

Both sides are now taking legal advice.

To read the full story

Free property management software, Free tenancy agreements