Bylaw unfair to landlords burdened with problem tenants
OK, let me get this straight, your solution to problem tenants is to introduce a bylaw to fine the innocent who have their hands tied by the tenancy board.
As far as I can recall most absentee landlords hire a rental company to bring in the renters and have little to do with the selection. There are laws that prevent these rental companies from discriminating against people due to their station in life. I can bet that not one person has gone to these rental agencies and told them, “Hey I’m a problem renter and like to get drunk/high and run my ATVs in the backyard at 2 a.m., oh and I party like crazy so bring your friends over if you want to wreck a house and harass the neighbours and please don’t mind the barking dogs, I only have three of them.”
As a landlord I have run into problem renters myself and I have sat outside my rental and called the police to investigate them during what to me looked like an out of control party but to no avail. I will not tell you what I did to get them out of my house after they tried to intimidate me, as I might be the one getting arrested. There are laws in place that prevent a landlord from interfering with their tenants and I have spent hours at the tenancy branch in Victoria trying to find some legal way that would allow me to evict my problem tenants, again to no avail unless I wanted to lie or was willing to go to jail.
I can understand that there are evil landlords as much as I can understand there are evil tenants, the one in every crowd syndrome, but to blanket us all in one bylaw sucks the big one. I have what might be a solution: why not arrest the prolific ones and hold them for 24 hours every time a call comes, after so many calls (pick a number) then they would have some incentive to stop.
Oh, and Jon, if I am paying for policing then I want policing; if I pay a plumber to fix my dripping tap and he decides it’s not leaking enough for his professional standard and changes my aging water heater instead I would be firing him. Use the policing money for policing as it is so evident they need it that a blind person can see it, not building dikes or whatever suits your fancy.
What this bylaw would accomplish is an increase in all rentals to cover the cost of a possible bad tenant just like the municipality has done to all homeowners with the policing cost. So much for affordable housing, just like it’s been so much for affordable property taxes. I can’t charge enough for my house to even begin to cover that cost anymore.
Oh, and by the way my problem renters cost me more in repairs to my house than what I received in rent for the previous five years. In my opinion you are promoting vigilantism and will soon be arresting landlords that don’t want to be fined. On that note, if the bylaw does go through and you landlords need someone to get the problem people gone I might consider it to be a new job opportunity for me and I could create some short term jobs for some security-minded toughs. It might be cheaper than the fines and certainly cheaper than the repair bills, and all legal of course, right officer?
Steve Attridge
Cowichan Self Defence
