Tara loved her Burnaby landlord.
Yes, I said loved.
I emphasize that word because – at least lately – I haven’t heard much love being shared between local tenants and their landlords. I’ve had a stream of angry messages from both sides detailing horror stories in the local rental housing market.
But Tara said that wasn’t the case with the landlord who owned a house in North Burnaby and rented it out to multiple tenants upstairs and downstairs in separate suites.
“He was kind and fair and always communicated expectations,” she said. “He did his best to not raise rents too high because he understood how pricey the market was. He will be missed.”
Tara and the other tenants in the house will miss him for many reasons after he died last year. One of those reasons is what happened after the landlord died suddenly of a heart attack.
“It was less than a week after his death and his adult kids didn’t even wait for the body to get cold before they told all of us we’d have to move out,” Tara said. “It wasn’t handled in a very nice way. It seems the apple does fall a long way away from the tree sometimes.”
Tara gets that the kids taking over the house have that right, but she says the tenants were lied to about the real reason.
“We were told that some family members would be moving into the house, but that’s not what’s happened since then,” she said. “They immediately started renovations and I was told by a reliable source in the family it was so they could rent out the units again at a much higher rate. The kids thought their dad was too kind and should’ve been charging a lot more in rent. Well, they are getting what they wanted and we ended up getting the boot. I just wish they had been honest about it.”
‘Ambushed’ follow up
A follow up to a column I wrote last week about how the City of Burnaby sent five inspectors to inspect an illegal basement suite of two immunocompromised people.
One reader wrote back saying that she was furious that the city sent so many people.
“There are no words,” wrote local resident Sofia. “There are at least 15 houses on my block with illegal suites and you don’t see anyone showing up inspecting them. So what in the mess is going on here? If you ask me, this looks like abuse of power. I’d even be willing to bet money on it being a disgruntled neighbour who complained, maybe had or has some kind of beef with the homeowner, not at all bothering to think of whose lives they were potentially uprooting and ruining in the process. That's usually the case because the majority of the time the City doesn't care or act on things like this. Regardless of the circumstance that brought them there, it’s disgusting that this is even going on not just in a pandemic, but at all. Hopefully this family of renters and other families living in illegal suites, knowingly or unknowingly, can just live in peace.”
While it is true that there are many illegal suites in the city, people should feel empathy for those who rent there because they have little choice in this rental market and they are the ones who pay the price if the city cracks down.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
