Hi ladies, thanks for all your advice. We got our bond back ($1500) and $2500 compensation so not enough to cover the damage but we decided just to settle for that. As for the agents - well that is a whole other story. My DH had been doing some work for them and then they decided not to pay him (as they felt they had done a great job getting the compensation for us). they are so dodgy and sadly are the type of people that give agents a bad name.