A Burnaby woman believes she’s facing eviction because she took her landlord to the Residential Tenancy Branch on two occasions.
“I believe I’ve been targeted,” said Rajela Singh, who’s lived in the Linden Glen Apartments in the Edmonds neighbourhood since November 2010.
Since Singh moved in, her one-bedroom unit has had its share of problems, she told the NOW. Everything from a problematic toilet to mice.
“The babies were breeding in boxes and books,” Singh recalled. “We’d be sitting in the washroom and the mice would be running over our feet.”
She sent a letter to her landlord, Fair Label Enterprises Ltd., on Dec. 28, 2010, informing the company of the problems, but received no response. Another letter was sent on Feb. 25, 2011 (again, no response), followed by a third letter sent on March 14. By that time, the mouse problem was so bad that Singh couldn’t use her kitchen. There were mouse droppings everywhere, she said.
The landlord tried to rectify the mouse problem, but was unsuccessful in sealing the holes. Singh ended up hiring a pest control company to take care of the issue and also took the matter to the Residential Tenancy Branch.
The arbitrator ruled Fair Label needed to pay Singh $2,638 for loss of food and unit space, and for the pest control fee. (Fair Label’s original offer to Singh was $307, according to the arbitrator’s decision. Fair Label refused Singh’s request for a rent reduction on the basis that it was not the landlord’s fault that mice appeared in her suite.)
Singh filed for dispute resolution again last year, this time asking for $12,557 for a leak that sprang in 2015 in the washroom and made its way to the kitchen, as well as three more leaks in 2017 that caused part of the ceiling in front of her entrance way to collapse. A big chunk of the $12,557 was to cover 11 months’ rent since the kitchen and dining area couldn’t be used, according to arbitration documents.
In each incident, repairs took four to five months, said Singh.
Fair Label remedied a leak from July 2017 on Jan. 16, 2018, one day before Singh’s meeting with the Residential Tenancy Branch, she said. She was awarded two months’ free rent for the ordeal.
Twelve days later, on Jan. 29, she was handed an eviction notice and was told she had to be out by March 31.
The reason for eviction, according to the notice, is that the suite will be occupied by the landlord or a close family member of the landlord’s (like a parent, spouse or child), as allowed under the Residential Tenancy Act.
But Singh believes that’s not the case and that she’s being punished for speaking up about her unit’s problems.
“My health is not good that I can pack and move,” she said, adding she’s on disability and can’t work full time. “Why my particular apartment and why now, when in eight years they haven’t had anyone in this apartment?”
One of the main reasons Singh moved to Linden Glen Apartments is to be closer to her brother and six-year-old niece, who also live in the building.
“She’s my emotional support,” she said through tears, pointing to her niece’s artwork on her fridge. “She just loves my place, and says, ‘This is my home.’”
Singh isn’t sure where she’ll go. If she has to find housing through B.C. Housing, she’s worried “they could put me anywhere.”
“All I wanted was to live peacefully in this apartment near my family,” she said.
Elaine Kwan, the building’s property manager, told the NOW she’s evicting Singh so her aunt, one of the owners of the property, can move in.
“We don’t have a caretaker or residential manager on site right now,” said Kwan. “She wants to take on the role of cleaning; there’s a lot of things that aren’t very clean here.”
There were no vacancies at the time Singh was given her notice, she added.
Kwan said she wasn’t “very on top of things” in 2011 when Singh reported the mice problem, but things have since changed.
The property manager noted she would love to help Singh move, suggesting Singh could relocate to another building she manages – Casa Mia in New Westminster.
“I definitely want to make her transition to another building easier, so if there’s anything she needs help with. I do know that it is hard.”
