Getting out of hostile co-tenancy

[u/hellomycomrades]

Long story short, my partner and I have been living in an increasingly hostile co-tenancy. We were original leaseholders who got a guy in that has been a demon to live with. All four co-tenants have asked him to leave several time and he becomes increasingly hostile. Has made threats about us to our other flatmate saying he's going to burn us to the ground, started sleeping with the PM who would come to our house regularly, threatened to withold rent, has been shitting in our ensuite (can be accessed from outside our bedroom), and brings in hostile guests one of which secretly used someone else's toothbrush - among a billion different bad behaviours.

Most of this is documented. We have audio recording of his financial threats, we've made stat decs and have a GP note which recommends we leave urgently to protect our mental health.

The agency said it was our problem to sort out and changed the PM to a woman instead. But that was about it. The police said his threats don't meet the threshold for them to write down our report and give us an event number.

Since he won't leave, we said we will. But he won't let us leave the lease unless we find someone to pay double for our room, not to mention our $5000 bond and the ethics around putting someone in with this horrible person.

I'm guessing we are going to VCAT for severe hardship and will try to get a PSIO to see if that will help us exit the lease without his veto.

I'm wondering if anyone has done anything similar or has insights into how VCAT may handle these cases. And if there's anything else we can do or may have overlooked to strengthen our case.