Posted on 02/26/2021 11:14:17 AM PST by nickcarraway
Tenants continue to take advantage, abuse GTA landlords
Harpreet Kaur rented out the two-bedroom basement apartment in her Mississauga home to a tenant in December of 2019 with rent paid up until September of last year.That’s when things started to fall apart.First the tenant — a WestJet employee who lost his job during COVID — moved in a friend and both refused to pay the $1,700-a-month rent.
Kaur, an optician, said the tenant promised to pay “something” by Oct. 7 and when he didn’t, the friend answered the door ordering her to get in touch by text from that day forward.
She said she texted them on the first day of every month, but got no answer.
Sometime in October, when she texted him that she needed the money to pay bills, buy groceries and pay for her daughters’ university education, he texted back: “I’m sorry, times are hard. With all due respect, find a cheaper schooling option and feed them less expensive food.”
Despite promising to get her something as soon as he could, she said there has been no rent paid, not even a portion, since September.
The two friends have now ramped up their harassment, smoking weed in a non-smoking unit and playing drums at 11 p.m.
“They have money for weed and for everything else but not for rent,” she said, noting she’s been renting the unit for 18 years and never had a problem before.
She said she went to the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) in November but hasn’t got a hearing yet.
“I’m getting depressed and angry,” she said, noting she’s the sole breadwinner for her family and they rely on the rent to supplement their household income.
She’s had to take money from her credit line to pay her mortgage.
Kaur said she cried when she read my front-page story this past Monday about how many tenants are taking advantage of the government’s no-eviction edicts and the pathetically slow pace of the LTB not to pay months and months of rent.
Since Monday’s story, I have been inundated with similar horrific stories of landlords being harassed, threatened and intimidated by tenants — some of them seemingly mentally unwell.
Another woman, who bought a 110-year-old historical home on Toronto’s Seaton St. in the summer of 2018 with the dream of fixing it up and becoming a small landlord, will be moving out with her 90-year-old mom at the end of March.
She’s given up.
Jane (not her real name), a civil engineer, decided to sell the house last June after being harassed by two male tenants while she was trying to deal with the impact of throat cancer and a hip replacement.
She said the “street people” in the area have nothing on them.
One allegedly harassed her 80-pound mom so much during the first four months of COVID, her paralegal suggested she pay him off to leave.
That tenant, she believes, sent a letter to her, which included a number of nasty comments such as: “I hope with every fibre of my being that you are deathly, irreversibly ill. Imagining your fear and your pain as your carcass increasingly fails you day by day gives me hope for the future. Having seen you hobble pathetically while trying to balance your overgrown, repulsive body on that pitiful cane as you huff and puff is delightful, if mildly disgusting.”
The second tenant, a legal aid lawyer also allegedly terrorized her mom — rather “aggressively” — which included throwing raccoon feces at them as we ate dinner in the backyard.
The tenant, who pays only $900 a month rent, also fought her efforts at the LTB to hire a nurse to help her with her hip replacement surgery and place the nurse in a vacant unit, she said.
LTB officials are blaming COVID for “sudden and unavoidable service delays.”
In a recent two-page response, spokesperson Janet Deline contended that despite these “unprecedented challenges,” Tribunals Ontario quickly developed and implemented new strategies to serve Ontario residents.
She said as of last Dec. 1, there are 38 full-time and 36 part-time adjudicators, the “greatest number” the board has ever had.
Says a lot about a person’s character.
Had a client tell me he had a similar situation with several tenants in one of his buildings. He said they are still working and getting good pay, but refuse to pay rent as they can’t be evicted.
I told him to ask his attorney if he could evict on other lease violations...
Or, get a judgement and then have the sheriff execute the judgement on their personal assets, forcing them into bankruptcy, or lose their assets.
Tell me how you think a landlord is taking advantage over a non paying tenant.
This is becoming popular in Toronto as a way of dealing with the cost of living insanity there. You convert your basement or even garage into a small apartment and rake in those few more bucks from the rent.
Sometimes “extralegal” solutions are the answer when the government goes raw fascist and “extralegal” against you.
But you have to be really careful.
Without the rule of law, we all have to do what we have to do to survive.
No, she relied on a tenant.
Don’t evict. Just change the locks and refuse to let them back in.
I own a apt complex and so far so good after 18 years. I really screen my renters and require a high credit score.
I still wake up in cold sweats wondering if this will ever happen to me.
I’m glad my apartments are paid off.
If any move out my wife told me to leave it empty until after covid is over and economy recovers.
“Don’t evict. Just change the locks and refuse to let them back in.”
If you do that in nearly any state you as the landlord would be thrown in jail.
Have some friends come over and throw them and all their stuff out.
They are still suppose to pay the back rent when the No Eviction order is canceled, what are the chances of that? I guess you can evict at that point but you’re still out that money.
Just trespassers.
They must be bullet proof.
Making evictions impossible sucks for landlord...but it makes it a living hell for the good tenants.
Reminds me of the movie Pacific Heights.
“Why? There’s no proof of an existing lease. No payment, no lease.
Just trespassers.”
You just cannot forcibly remove squatters. It has to go through court system and then sherriff
If you forcibly remove them they will own the apartment.
The landlord should confirm her insurance is in place, then torch the place and move away.
I’m obliged to say Oh USA,
but, I’m shaking my head saying O Canada.
I’m a renter with A-1 references from all Landlords. Even during covid I paid rent because how I was raised is you always pay rent/mortgage first....and if unemployed and you can’t afford it you need to move to what your income does allow....and at worst move in with your family until you’re on your feet.
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