On September 15, Black Cat Complaints, in collaboration with the China Quality Report, released the "2026 Housing Rental Consumption Pitfall Guide" (referred to as the "Guide"). Marking the first anniversary of the "Housing Rental Regulations," the Guide draws on 12,003 housing rental complaints filed on the platform and survey responses from 11,096 tenants collected by the Shell Research Institute, systematically mapping out the "Top Ten Pitfalls" across the entire rental process—pre-lease, during-lease, and post-lease—while offering preventive measures and recommendations for each.

The top three pitfalls are all directly tied to money, with deposit refund refusals and malicious deductions leading at 33.3%—meaning nearly one in three rental complaints involves deposits. This category accounts for approximately 9.39 million yuan in disputed amounts, with delayed-refund complaints surging by 51%. The practice of "light-lamp damage assessment," where landlords use exaggerated or nitpicky inspections to justify withholding deposits, has become a typical example of malicious deduction. Contract fraud and unfair clauses follow at 14%, with oral promise breaches making up 71% of those complaints, and the "short-lease, long-sign" scam still rampant. Rent and fee disputes account for 12.4%, with complaints about unauthorized charges outside the contract growing by 34% over the past year. These three primary pitfalls each exceed 10% of total complaints, while the secondary pitfalls include non-refundable deposits and advance payments, platform performance failures and unresponsive customer service, lack of maintenance support, capital security issues and fraud (with absconder-related complaints up 33%), infringement of peaceful living rights (including privacy violations and forced evictions), housing quality and safety concerns (such as formaldehyde, partitions, noise, gas, and electrical hazards), and fake listings—where "photo-deceptive" complaints actually rose by 12%.

Notably, some areas are showing signs of improvement—formaldehyde-related complaints dropped 28% after the regulations took effect, while mold, odor, and pest-related complaints still climbed 46%. The Guide indicates that tenants' awareness of rules has grown markedly over the year since the regulations were enacted. Black Cat Complaints received 12,003 housing rental complaints, an 11% increase from 10,767 in the previous year, averaging about 1,000 per month. March 2026, the post-holiday rental peak, saw a record 1,636 complaints in a single month—a two-year high. Half of the surveyed tenants reported a stronger sense of rights protection, with 47.6% preferring official channels for recourse; "rationally citing rules" complaints rose from 4.0% to 10.6%, with 955 complaints referencing the Civil Code and 118 directly invoking the Housing Rental Regulations.

In response to the ten pitfalls, the Guide offers tailored countermeasures for each stage of the rental process. Before signing the lease, tenants should conduct video inspections, refuse any viewing fees, clarify the name, amount, purpose, and refund conditions of any deposit while paying the lowest possible proportion, and ensure all oral promises are written into the contract. They should list all fees before signing and pay nothing beyond the contract. During the lease, tenants should keep records of all communication, save work orders for repairs, be wary of "new renovation plus odor" combinations, and avoid partitioned or shared rooms entirely. After the lease ends, tenants should protect their funds by paying no more than three months' rent at a time, transferring money only to corporate accounts, filming the entire unit on the first day of move-in, conducting an on-site inspection upon move-out, and issuing a formal demand if the deposit is not refunded on time.

The Guide distills these points into a pre-payment self-check list: has the listing been verified, are the fee items clear, are oral promises in the contract, is the full fee list provided, is the payee a corporate account, and does the single payment exceed three months? If any of these six questions cannot be answered, hold off on paying.

Yet not all disputes can be prevented in advance, and resolving them can be exceptionally complex. Consider the issue of water leakage. After a summer downpour, a tenant in Hangzhou noticed water dripping from the ceiling and reported it to the sublessor, but no action was taken—previous appliance repair requests had also been ignored. As the leak worsened and made the unit uninhabitable, the tenant was forced to move out. The sublessor neither made repairs nor returned the deposit. Meanwhile, in Wuhan, a tenant heard clear water sounds from the bathroom ceiling, even though the upstairs unit had been vacant for a long time. A site manager from Shell confirmed the issue and coordinated with the owner, neighbors, and the water utility; after shutting off the main valve affected other residents, the manager personally bought bottled water and delivered it door-to-door as an apology. The cause turned out to be a burst valve and pipe in the upstairs bathroom from years of neglect.

In reality, many complaints also take unexpected turns. In Ningbo, a tenant self-tested for formaldehyde, found it elevated, and demanded a room change or lease termination and move-out. But when staff arrived, they saw stacks of express boxes piled up in the room—cardboard boxes can release formaldehyde at room temperature. After removing the boxes, a third-party test showed the levels were within limits, and the Shell platform covered the 680 yuan testing and moving costs. That "lesson," however, was not wasted: formaldehyde sources go beyond fresh renovations and new furniture to include cabbage, takeout insulation bags, hoarded delivery boxes, and even craft beads and figurines.

The common root cause of these ten pitfalls lies in the fragmented rental market's information asymmetry, missing services, and lack of accountability. This means the real solution isn't turning every tenant into a legal expert or evidence-gathering specialist, but converting "oral promises" into "systemic rules" and filling the uncertainty gap at the institutional and regulatory level in advance. Looking at the public practices of Shell's worry-free rental service as a case study, the approach to the deposit problem involves reducing reliance on cash deposits: in 12 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu, tenants who meet credit criteria can rent with zero deposit and pay monthly—"zero deposit" doesn't mean exempting responsibility, as arrears, breaches, and deliberate damage still fall under the contract, but the deposit shifts from money held in a landlord's account back to a promise tied to credit. In Chengdu, move-out deposit refunds are guaranteed within three days, with a 100-yuan compensation per overdue case—compared to "refund as soon as possible," the timeline and accountability are made concrete.

Similarly, for the public's concerns about formaldehyde apartments and "renovation-flip" units, Shell's worry-free rental service has moved prevention to before move-in: using listing information and handheld screening to identify risks, with special attention to newly renovated homes and new furniture, followed by professional testing, treatment, and re-inspection. In the first half of 2026, Shell Huiju tested 14,880 units nationwide, identifying 1,278 as "formaldehyde apartments" and treating 4,488 in total. For rental water leaks, the approach requires both preemptive inspection and a guarantee of support when problems arise. In that period, Shell's worry-free rental service inspected over 450,000 units, reducing monthly water leak incidents per 10,000 units to 2.4—a 67% year-on-year decline. For complex repairs involving waterproof layers and concealed pipes where responsibility is ambiguous, the company absorbed 19.61 million yuan in costs and 5.3 million yuan in leak compensation, covering landlords, tenants, neighbors, and property management alike.

Indeed, the order of the resolution process is critical; the standard procedure for managed agencies is to first stop the damage and ensure the tenant's living conditions, then clarify responsibility, and only afterward pursue compensation from the actual responsible party—so tenants don't have to face a growing water stain on the ceiling alone in a rainstorm, nor get caught in buck-passing among the landlord, neighbors, and property management. Huang Hui, a senior rental analyst at the Shell Research Institute, noted: "Shell is translating every 'pitfall' into a systemic rule: zero-deposit monthly payments address the deposit problem, time-limited repairs address the lack of maintenance, third-party escrow and facial recognition address sublessors absconding with funds, and gas and electrical fire inspections address rental safety."

Indeed, the market demands a more standardized housing rental sector. From "light-lamp damage assessment" to "zero-deposit monthly payments," from "no one to call for repairs" to "time-limited repairs," these shifts all point in one direction: in the future, avoiding pitfalls in the rental market won't rely on tenants becoming savvier, but on shrinking the space for unreasonableness. When rules outpace disputes, and when the costs of breach and evasion exceed their benefits, the "pitfalls" can truly be filled, and secure, worry-free living can become the everyday reality of renting.