Our story starts in November 2019 when we made the grave mistake of allowing our current nonpaying Tenant to move into our basement apartment.
The signs started out slowly and now has become our worst nightmare. The Tenant has not paid rent since August 2020. After months of abusive texts, accusations of our unit being full of black mold, saying her unit floods with every rainfall (no texts to us though), injuries on the property, physically in my face spitting mad, taking 5 parking spots while her family visits pushing the upstairs unit’s vehicle to the road. The police do not want to do anything they say it’s the RTA and walk away. One day I received 33 abusive long texts in 27 minutes accusing us of all sorts of things, calling us every name you can think of, saying she will not pay rent, we will not get a dime out of her, we are drunks, slumlords and we will owe her so much money, etc. (This Tenant sits in her car drinking, smoking and yelling into her phone all hours of the night). These texts continued daily for two months (Police would not look at them), we hired a Paralegal who directed the Tenant to only communicate with her. She continued to do her nastiness regardless of these instructions. She has three profiles on Facebook and I have watched her lie and name us on one particular group that we all are familiar with. She posts lies after lies but always gets the sympathy she is looking for and the advice to sue us, if we sell, ask for 25,000 plus etc.
It’s been hard staying clean and not saying a word, but she has no ammunition to go to the LTB with because of this. We received the following text in December when we went to clean our STR unit “Do not ever walk into my bathroom while I am naked in the tub, this is not an emergency and you are scaring the **** out of me.” This is another testimony to her lies and how her mind works. We finally got the police to call her based on this text to tell her she will be charged with criminal harassment if she continues to text us (this took 4 months to achieve).
October 2020 – We filed the L1 and L2 in mid-October with the Paralegal’s help. It took 60 days to get a file number for both of these applications and we received the file numbers on December 21st (an early Christmas present I guess). That was after I emailed and emailed the LTB.
January 2021 we learned our Tenant had an inheritance around 100,000 dollars. We think “oh ya we are going to get our money” but nope no money comes.
February 2021 – We get two payments for 1.5 months of rent (she owed us 7 months) out of the blue. She is aware that we have reported her to a credit reporting agency . It so happened that the agency sent out the automated email on the same day as she made payment which ticked her off to no end. She then emails our Paralegal to say in ‘good faith’ I have paid my Landlords but they still report me to the agency, so there is no good faith on their part why should I pay any more money to them. I guess we were to “forgive” the other 5.5 months of rent.
April 2021 – Finally on April 7th get a hearing date for the L1 for June 7th two months more of waiting and no rent.
May 2021 – This past week I asked the LTB when I was going to get a hearing date for the L2. I was sent the “shorten” hearing form. I replied this is unbelievable to apply for a shortened hearing date when I have waited 7 months? I also said it’s a waste of time. I have read where Landlords have had bullet holes in their houses, they have been physically hit, there are drug issues and they get turned down for shorten hearing. It’s a joke!
Through the past 9 months she has told us and our Paralegal over and over she has the money, but she has been treated ‘unfairly’ so she will wait for the courts and pay them and stated she knows the LTB is at least 6 months beyond; good luck she said to us. There
are no outstanding maintenance issues. This should be illegal, she intentionally is not paying her rent even though she has the money, and the costs that we have incurred due to her ability to do this and there are no consequences for her so of course she will do this. I believe if a Landlord was in ‘bad’ faith we can face up to $35,000 fine.
We are hoping that on June 7th some justice that has not been afforded to us will come in the way of the LTB hearing. This Tenant has intentionally not paid her rent, nothing to do with COVID. There needs to be some consequences to Tenants actions when intentionally they do not pay, damage and harassing etc.
We will sell our property as we cannot go through this again. I have never felt so much injustice in my life. We know we made mistakes in choosing her and realize that ‘nice’ people get taken advantage of and abused. So this is not for us, I never dreamed that we would have no rights to our property. The mental anguish and stress is unbelievable. I dream of the day that I am no longer a “Landlord” and can get on with retirement.
Thanks to the SOLO group who is bringing Small Ontario Landlords together; together we can make a change!
