Nice job cleaning up the yard

Too Funny

DS found my blog and called and complained to the Midland Police (wrong police department for this area, hon... but thanks for letting me know where you are; good to know).

Have, at his request, fixed the one place where her actual name was included, which was, actually, in a direct quote from a police officer that actually knew her name - the one that called today had a different name for her, apparently.  Interesting - I suppose when one makes a habit of ripping people off, the use of a number of different names makes sense.

Funny how DS didn't have any hesitation to use our names to spread lies, but objects to having any of hers in any way associated with the truth, eh?  Funny - but again, not surprising.

Such a hater, I am :)

In response to a question about why it takes so long to get rid of bad tenants, posted in the Ontario Landlords' Association forum earlier this evening - or I guess yesterday evening, now, since it's 3:41 am (back hurts too much for sleeping), I replied that:

I don't know about other areas, but in ours, many of the delays are easily attributed to sheer stupidity and carelessness.

 

Oh, and to a total lack of shiving a git at both the Legalized Theft Board and the Sheriff's Office... cuz, you know... delays & costs don't matter because you'll "get an order" and that is supposed to mean something

.

My response hurted someone's feelings:

You know what, your are waaay TOO hostile, I explain the Legislation, I don't fuggin write it... I understand your frustration, and yep take alot of abuse from people like you... that's not saying I don't understand your frustration... I REALLY do, but don't kill the messenger o.k?

Since my comment was written in response to someone else's question and was not directed to this charming new participant who joined the forum to be helpful (but only if nobody says anything bad about the LTB and irks her because she takes it personally and she, apparently, thinks she is well within in her rights to show up in our forum and tell people what they are allowed to think/say cuz well, you know... she's the boss of the world, right?)  I hardly felt it worth responding to there... but I did offer to provide her with evidence re: stupid and careless.

She didn't take me up on it :)

But hey, this is my blog and I can write whatever I want here, right?

And since I can't sleep and can't focus enough to write coherent cover letters right now, figure I might as well blather on here for a bit and expand on my comment.

Examples of sheer stupidity & carelessness:

1. initial hearing set for the wrong location (i.e. someone didn't know which area of the province our town is in, and didn't bother to check - just arranged the hearing to be heard in Mississauga cuz that is where the application (correctly) was sent to).
2. when the tenant complained, the date and location was changed. No one, however, bothered to a/ ask for my consent to the change (as per their own supposed rules which only apply to landlords, not to tenants, obviously, in spite of what they actually say) or b/ ensure that we were notified. If I hadn't called them on another matter and if it hadn't actually come up in that conversation, I would have driven 2 hours one way for a hearing that had been cancelled. But hey, no worries...I am a landlord, therefore I am independently wealthy and can afford such nonsense, right?
3. When they did change the date, it was from a day that I could attend, i.e. a Monday, to a day when I could not, at least not without cancelling class for more than 80 students who are entitled to the instruction they pay for. Since, when I submitted my applications, I also included a polite letter explaining my limitations re: availability and even going so far as to include a copy of my official timetable, and since, although not as often, they DO hold hearings on other days of the week even in Hicksville, I really did not think it unreasonable to ask that they at least TRY to accommodate me. Not only did they refuse to do so, they went so far as to schedule our hearings on consecutive Thursdays. Rather than putting them altogether, they thought I would like to force my 80+ students to miss classes 3 weeks in a row.
4. It took repeated phone calls, tears, and finally an all-out tantrum before I was able to get someone to actually listen and - once I had obtained written consent from the squatters (because the landlord cannot change the hearing without consent; only tenants may do so) - to do something about it. Sort of.
5. But first, I had to fax in my request for rescheduling (at the very least put all 3 hearings on the same damn day and preferably NOT a Thursday). I did exactly I was directed - and the answer was NO. The person who was in charge of rescheduling refused to do so. She left a message on my answering machine telling me that since she had already rescheduled the hearing for "me" she would not do it again ("me" being the tenant, not me, of course). Oh, and by the way, they had not received my paperwork regarding the nonpayment of rent, so wouldn't be scheduling THAT one at all.  (Except that they had not only received it, they had sent it back to me with the hearing notices!!!!) 
6. Of course, when you call the LTB, you are calling their customer "service" centre (using the term very loosely) so I was not able to respond to her idiotic message directly. To add to my frustration, I got it when I got home on a Friday; the CS centre was closed and I got to stew about it all weekend. When I did call them on the Monday, it took 3 tries before I was able to get an agent who was actually capable of LISTENING rather than spewing nonsense straight from the website and totally unrelated to what I was saying. He bumped me to a manager, who did in fact, call me back as promised, and who was actually, compared to everyone else I had the misfortune of dealing with, quite helpful. She did agree that it was rather ridiculous to have 3 separate hearings on 3 consecutive weeks, and while she was not able to move us to a date that actually would work for me in terms of students, she would help me to mitigate the damage by moving it to a Tuesday and by writing a note to the adjudicator requesting that our case be heard as early as possible so that I could hopefully be freed up in time to teach at least the last couple of hours of my class. She also was able to sort out the problem of the supposedly missing but not really application so that that issue would also be dealt with. But unfortunately all of this added weeks to the whole thing - every day of which cost us additional money & aggravation.

I've already written about most of the other assorted nonsense ... i.e. the fact that the adjudicator changed the order between telling us about it and writing it up ...  so won't detail all that again ... but it seems to me that the above nonsense contains more than enough evidence to support "stupid & careless" ... in fact, I should also have included "extremely biased against landlords" in my original comments now that I think about it :)

Just a little ~oopsie~ .... but not to worry....

.... the media release assures us that "no Ontario Works clients will be short-changed."  Of course not... the only parties likely to be short changed and never have a snowball's hope in hell of fixing it are the landlords - you know, the ones stupid enough to rent to anyone on assistance so that when it all goes to hell in a handbasket they're left out to dry with no help and no hope of recovery.

We FINALLY have a new tenant moving into the apartment the squatters were in... not on OW, thank goodness...

FINALLY might be able to breathe... pay bills... eat... all that good stuff...

and here we go again.

The tenants in our other house are, in fact, on direct pay. Don't know yet if we're affected - but you can be we won't be sleeping well until we find out.

But hey, no worries. No Ontario Works clients will be shortchanged.

And we landlords, well we just don't count for sh*t here in Ontario, do we? Clearly, that is exactly the case.

So ... now I've sent 2 emails to Kathleen Wynne, 1 to Andrea Horwath, and 2 to the ministry (2nd one just today) .... perhaps I should start a pool on when I'll get a response and from whom?

I am not holding my breath.

Have NEVER had such poor responses from politicians as I have since I began writing about Landlord Tenant issues ... interesting, hmmm?

Brighter Prospects?

Read a little bit of Ontario Report "Brighter Prospects" ...a report by the Commission for the Review of Social Assistance prepared by Commissioners Frances Lanken and Munir A. Sheikh.

Was looking, of course, specifically for what it says about housing in Ontario. Disappointing. Extremely so, in fact. This section of the report, on page 90 if you're interested, shows a total lack of understanding of WHY people on assistance are having difficulty accessing affordable housing.

Which is not surprising, as they apparently consulted with "stakeholders" -  i.e. people on assistance, most of whom have extremely limited understanding of why landlords refuse to rent to them, having rarely had the opportunity to be on the other side of the landlord-tenant relationship. My perspective - back when I was a single mother (albeit working, rather than on assistance) was very different than it is now that I am on the other side of the deal - I did not have a CLUE...

So it does not surprise me that the majority of low income people seeking housing don't get it.

The others who were provided the opportunity for input, however, should have done better.

Better yet, someone should have asked the landlords what the problem is and how to fix it. Because I'm sorry, but the recommendation that is offered will not do it. What they are suggesting is a housing benefit for not only those on assistance, but "all people with low-incomes." 

Guess what? We will still refuse to offer affordable housing to people on assistance. Those of us who have been burned - and all of those who haven't but have heard about our experiences and realize how easily it could happen to them - will continue to rent to people with jobs and NOT to people on OW/ODSP.  It doesn't matter how much money you give to people on assistance in Ontario for rent - it is not worth the risk, and we know it.

And you can cry discrimination and make laws against discrimination all you want - but the reality is that not all landlords are independently wealthy. Many, like me, cannot AFFORD to provide housing to people on assistance - because when it goes bad, it goes really, REALLY bad, and there is no help at all for us in Ontario. Everyone wants money - but no one actually DOES anything to help, at least not in any reasonable period of time.

The money that my last tenant-from-hell cost me was about 1/3 of my gross income for a year. Gross. Not net. How would YOU like to take a hit like that? Yeah, I thought not.

At least, if you rent to someone with a job and a good credit rating and it goes bad, you have some small hope of recovery. It might take a long time and a lot of hassle - but we will eventually likely get at least some of our money back.

If you rent to someone with neither of those things, when it goes bad, you get to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars  - and continue to provide them with housing and all amenities for the months it takes to get them out - and for the damages they do during that time.... and you have ZERO chance of recovery at the end of it. Ever.

It is not even worth paying to file the order that the Legalized Theft Board will eventually give you against them ...which is a shame, as it means that the orders don't show up on their credit ratings so other people learn the hard way too....

We pay taxes which go to support people on OW and ODSP. Our taxes also support, presumably, the agencies which go out of their way to protect the poor helpless tenants against the big bad landlords - the Legalized Theft Board, the Sheriff's Office, the police, local by-law officials and so on ....

Guess what?

People don't get to be in the position of having money and credit to buy properties to rent by being stupid.

Chance of recovery vs no possibility of recovery - who would YOU rent to?

If the Commission for the Review of Social Assistance actually wanted to make recommendations to address the difficulties of finding housing for marginalized people they should talk to the landlords. Stop by the http://ontariolandlords.org/forum/  why don't you?

The problems CAN be fixed ... but not by giving low income people more money, sorry. Won't work.

There are some relatively simple measures which would drastically improve the situation ... but it seems that no one wants to hear them; most can't even be bothered to respond to emails.

I don't claim to have all the answers ...but I DO have suggestions:

• As soon as a landlord reports an issue with a tenant's rent to their OW/ODSP worker, their shelter allowance should be STOPPED pending resolution. Hold it in trust until the issue is resolved by the LTB, then distribute it as per the order
• individuals who have demonstrated their inability to manage their housing independently should be on direct pay (rent paid directly to landlords) AND required to provide 60 days notice to landlord and worker before shelter allowances can be redirected
• If you really feel the need to throw money at the problem, I would suggest that it would be better used to create a fund which could guarantee tenancies. For example, if my tenant has messed up and needs assistance to save their housing, the fund would pay the shortfall - and - so as to reduce abuse - require that they pay it back through a small monthly deduction. Expecting landlords to eat it every time a tenant doesn't pay their rent is not reasonable.
• The LTB needs an attitude adjustment. Their role is to implement the RTA - NOT to assist tenants to screw landlords and to provide worthless orders. There should be timelines for hearings - it is not reasonable to allow lengthy delays. And they should treat all parties with respect. Yes, even landlords.
• The Sheriff's Office is a joke. When evictions are ordered, they need to happen - even if it happens to be winter, or December, or someone's week off or what-the-hell-ever.  If the Sheriff's Office can't handle that, then end their monopoly; allow us to pay someone else to execute the order. And again - some training re: treating people with respect wouldn't hurt. I'd be happy to contribute to it through my taxes.

 

9 Things Your Landlord Won't Tell You

Followed a link to an article called Nine Things Your Landlord Won't Tell You on Huffington Post - tried to respond in a comment but the site was wonky and was getting frustrated... so here is my response instead.

Don't know if I'll manage Nine... but lets see, shall we?

However Many Things Your Landlord WILL Tell You:

1. The rent you are asked to pay is used to pay the bills on the house you live in. I know it doesn't seem like it - but trust me, darling, owning a home costs more money than you think. In addition to the cost of carrying the mortgage, utitlities and maintenance and repair - which, you presumably have some awareness of? - there are things that, if you've never owned a home, you might not be aware of. The insurance, for example, costs us a heck of a lot more on a house someone else lives in that it would on one that we live in... as in close to 3x as much. And then there are property taxes, of course.
2. Most landlords do charge slightly higher than the bare minimum required to cover the expenses of the unit though - that is because we've learned that almost every single tenant will screw us over one way or another, so we have to build in a cushion to try to cover that.
3. When you don't pay your rent, we still have to pay the mortgage, property taxes, hydro, water, gas, insurance, maintenance & repairs on YOUR home - even if that means that we don't have anything left to pay for ours.
4. When you withhold some portion of your rent because of unexpected expenses like a car repair, cell phone bill, medical emergency, bus pass you had to replace... whatever... you are essentially borrowing money from us - without our consent. We are often sorry about your bad luck - but not so fond of having it visited on us.
5. Last month's rent is collected not because we are mean, and trying to keep you from finding a place to live but to protect both of us. If you ever actually bothered to give proper notice when you left, you would have last month's rent available for the next landlord, and it wouldn't be such an issue for you. Hey - here's a thought   - if you actually gave proper notice when you were moving, not only would you have your last month's rent back with interest, you could probably also have a really good reference. You know...because it is so rare.
6. When you give notice that you want to move on, we typically wish you well and start looking for new tenants. If you change your mind, you really do need to try to come to some agreement with us - and the nastier and uglier you are about this, the less likely we are going to work out such an agreement.
7. There are these really big smelly trucks that come by every week to pick up your garbage. All you have to do is get it to the curb on the right day of the week. Storing your garbage in the back yard, or worse, in the house, means the smell stays in the unit and doesn't go away. It really is not that hard, honest. And if you'd just make that little bit of effort, your landlord will love you for it. Really!
8. Problems that are small are a lot easier to fix than problems that have been allowed to get big and ugly. We really do appreciate it when you let us know about problems before they turn into crises.
9. The reason you have a hard time finding reasonable landlords is because so many of us have been screwed sooooooooooooooo many times. There is no support for landlords, really. When there is a problem, the landlord is required to pay lots of extra money to the agencies that are supposed to help to solve the problem - but they really don't. If we're really, really lucky, after we pay all that money to jump through all the hoops, all we wind up with is a useless piece of paper, which we have to pay more money to try to collect from you.
10. We know that YOU would never ever screw us over, make a mess, damage our property, let your kitty and your dog and your children stink up and/or decorate the joint, refuse to pay rent, deal drugs out of our homes, etc etc .... but you know, every single tenant we've ever rented to has promised all those same things you're promising.  

So yeah... there are some pretty unreasonable landlords out there...and then there are others, like us, who have decided to just not bother any more. Congratulations... you win.  Don't have a lot of reasonable housing options any more?  Well gee, I wonder how THAT happened?!

Legalized Theft

Legalized theft – while I am willing to concede that this is not the actual intent of Landlord & Tenant Board Legislation in Ontario, this is, in fact, the reality. The system is broken.  

If someone books a hotel room, pays for one night, and then the next day, refuses to either pay or leave, are they permitted to stay there for months on end, continuing to pay nothing, while enjoying all the amenities that the hotel has to offer? Of course not. The hotel calls the police, and the person is ejected, and quite possibly charged.

And yet, when my tenants give notice that they will be moving out at the end of the month and then fail to leave, what happens? Absolutely nothing.

Not only am I unable to have the police assist me to eject those who are now stealing from me, they are able to call the police and any number of other community agencies, all of whom insist that I, as a landlord, am required to continue to provide my now ex-tenants with the amenities to which they were entitled while paying rent, and, as if that weren’t enough, they also continue to be entitled to the “enjoyment” of “their” home.

I was able to get an ex parte eviction order, after paying the $170 fee to do so, of course – unfortunately, the Sheriff, in Ontario, is the only one that can legally evict the tenant and they don’t seem to be the least bit interested in actually doing their jobs. Certainly not during the month of December, in any case…. They’ll get to it when they get to it. I had thought perhaps it was simply the Barrie Sheriff’s office which couldn’t be bothered, but a simple Google search shows that this is a common issue throughout the province.

Weeks pass…during which the tenants figure out how to file for a stay of the eviction order. So now I’ve paid $170 for the order which is stayed, plus $401 for the eviction which never happens, and of course, I must continue to pay all of the tenants’ utilities, and ensure that they have heat and water and hydro. Oh, and another $170 for an order re: the outstanding rent and damages.

Makes no never mind at all that they have not paid a single cent since a partial payment in October, or that they gave notice for the end of November, or that they are running around town bragging about how they’re getting away with screwing us over. Nobody cares that our Christmas was ruined and that we don’t have money to pay our own bills – just as long as we keep paying the bills for the tenants.

They demand that we repair the appliances they destroyed, the wall they ripped out, the patio door they demolished – and when we do make repairs, they immediately trash everything again. We, on the other hand, are told by police that we may no longer use our own basement unit because our running of the vacuum cleaner downstairs interferes with their enjoyment.

Seriously?! How is this in any way reasonable?

Perhaps we should just unlock the doors to the basement unit and let them have that too, since we can’t use it?

Maybe we should just sign over the deed – at least that way we wouldn’t have to keep paying for the insurance, taxes and utilities.

At any rate, eventually we do have the hearing. The instructions say that one must sign in by 9 am, and provide 3 copies of any evidence to be offered, and we do that. She, on the other hand, does not, turning up several minutes into the proceedings of our case. The hearing goes reasonably well – or so I thought. Turns out, not so much.

The adjudicator ruled that the male of the couple – the one that actually works, from whom we might eventually be able to garnishee wages to recoup some of the now $5000 and rising we have lost – is not a tenant of the unit. Had he mentioned that he was considering this, I would have had the opportunity to address the issue, and provide my evidence to the contrary. But this, apparently, was a secret. Not only that, even though the adjudicator found that my affidavit as to having received notice for the end of November was credible, and her denial was not, he decided that due to her circumstances it was “not unfair” to permit her extra time. So he extended her totally free tenancy to on or after 16 February.

How very charitable of him.

Toss out our only chance of repayment without so much as a discussion – and then decide that they should remain in the unit, on our dime, for an extra month.

Plus, of course, whatever time it takes the Sheriff to actually do his job this time; a minimum, they tell me, of 5 days, but probably longer.

So -  a partial payment of rent in October, and then not a cent more, and we’re on the hook until basically the end of February. But not to worry, we’ll get “an order”, which thanks to the oh so charitable adjudicator, is not even worth the stamp they used to mail it. To add insult to injury, after all this, they even get credit for their last month's rent - so what is the point of even collecting that?

But hey, I can spend another $50 to ask for a review of the decision.

And even if John is not added back onto the order, I can spend another couple of hundred dollars to enter my order against Christine in Small Claims Court. Perhaps someday she might actually get a job that I could garnishee. Not likely – and how would I ever find out about it? 

And in the meantime, they continue squatting in our house – now with heaters and other appliances running nonstop from every plug, and the windows wide open. And there is not a blessed thing we can do about it. I did call the OPP to ask for assistance with this, but it’s been 5+ hours now and they haven’t bothered to call me back.

Because nobody cares if deadbeats steal from landlords in Ontario.

The system is a complete and utter joke.

It is a disgrace.

OK, now THAT is just funny. I just called the OPP again ... guy asked the address, and said "Is this ------?"  Apparently she called them too - presumably to whine that I yelled at J about having a lot of nerve to be so rude to me when they are the ones who have stolen more than $6,000 from us, and that I slammed the door when I left.  Newsflash - even though you've changed the lock and refused to give us a key, it is still our door, in our house. I have a heck of a lot more right to slam the door than she does.

Or I should have, if this wasn't Ontario, where tenants have all the rights, and landlords have none at all.