Bad landlords can make life difficult for tenants, whether with a no-pets clause or a condition to not mount anything on the walls.
Canada’s housing shortage and skyrocketing rents are enough to defeat tenants nationwide, especially in metropolitan cities.
According to the latest rent report from Rentals.ca, Vancouver has hit an average rent of $3,605 for two-bedroom units. In Toronto, a two-bedroom unit will cost you a mind-boggling $3,224 monthly.
Things get a little more complicated when dealing with weird and often illegal actions, like a landlord demanding several months’ rent when signing a lease.
Worse yet, some force existing tenants to pay out of pocket for the light wear and tear or feel entitled to visit the unit any time they want without proper notice.
We asked Canadians to share the weirdest and wildest things landlords have requested of them.
Here are the stories of four tenants.
Just lie to the City for me? 😇
This account was sent in by Christina*, who was renting a “quite rundown and old” house for $2,800 monthly in Burnaby, BC, with her family.
“The landlord asked us to lie to the City of Burnaby and tell them he was living in a part of the home — even suggesting we all stage the basement like a room so that he didn’t have to get a business license to rent and pay taxes on rental income,” the tenant said.
When the request was refused, the landlord told Christina and her family he would move back into the home, and they had to find someplace else.
“He then hired a placement agency to bring new Canadians to look at renting the home and rented to a new Canadian family for $600 more monthly,” shared Christina.
She claimed that when this issue, along with others, was brought to the Residential Tenancy Board, the board noted the tenants didn’t have enough proof and did nothing.
“Anyone looking at the evidence could see what was happening. The Residential Tenancy Board is a scary, non-professional body where no one is accountable,” concluded Christina.
No foreign language 🙅🏽♀️
Ina, a Vancouverite in her mid-sixties, told us she was renting an apartment for $1,220/month.
Her landlord defined the request for an entrance note as “harassment” and told her to stop asking for it.
Ina also said that she speaks a foreign language, and the landlord would complain any time they would overhear the language being spoken.
Case of the “stolen” bedsheets 🛌
Ado, an engineer who doesn’t want to reveal their last name, paid $3,100 with a friend for a two-bedroom lane house in Vancouver.
“When moving out, my landlord wanted to keep half of our deposit due to a couch not being in the same place as when we moved in,” they shared. “We were never provided the opportunity to move the couch; we were just told after we handed the keys over the following day that half our deposit would be kept because of the placement of the couch.”
Ado and their friend requested their deposit through the Residential Tenancy Board.
“Because our landlord had no idea of the rules or no idea to respond to our official request to return the deposit, they ended up paying us double our deposit as they didn’t return it in the 15 days required or raise a file to keep our deposit,” Ado said.
They added that the matter went to court, and Ado and their roommate were accused of stealing bedsheets, furniture, and more.
“The landlord presented a list of furniture bought for the lane house (which was never there in the first place) that all got delivered to a totally different address,” said Ado. “Turns out the bedsheets we were accused of stealing were on the beds in their basement suite, which was up on Airbnb. We enjoyed presenting that one to the arbitrator at the RTB court.”
A total sh*tshow 🚽
Anita*, a student, was renting a house with two roommates for $2,600 a month.
The Vancouver home had four bedrooms and only one bathroom.
One day, the toilet became clogged, and after an hour of trying to unclog it, the tenants decided to call the landlord to ask if they could help or let the tenants call a plumber independently.
“Our landlord said they didn’t want to pay for one and couldn’t come that day, so they asked if we could wait till the next day. Obviously, this doesn’t work when it’s your only bathroom,” Anita shared. “However, in true Vancouver landlord fashion, [the landlord] offered us to walk 15 minutes to their house every time we needed to use the bathroom.”
Anita said that after multiple back-and-forth phone calls, the landlord finally decided to fix the toilet.
Do you have a similar landlord story you would like to share? Email us at [email protected].
*Pseudonyms have been used to protect the tenants’ identity.