Look, we are all fed up with skyrocketing BC Hydro bills, right?
I’ve personally cut back on how much I use the power by constantly turning off lights and powering down devices.
But in no way should these rising rates be used to punish renters in Burnaby. That’s what’s happening for some tenants who have shared recent stories about landlords hassling them over power usage.
Tara, who rents a basement suite in Edmonds, says her unit included access to a washer and dryer for laundry through a shared space that was accessible to another tenant and the upstairs landlords.
The lease specifies that she pay a “flat fee” for utilities that includes BC Hydro, and the monthly payment is not based on a percentage. But the lease also does not specifically mention access to the washer and dryer.
Both of these things became relevant to Tara’s situation.
During the past year, the landlord has been complaining about how Tara isn’t “paying her fair share” of the utilities because the monthly bills were getting more expensive.
“I explained to the landlord that I had a signed agreement that sets out a flat fee, but he was trying to renegotiate,” she said. “I wasn’t having any of that.”
And so, the landlord kept hassling her about turning off lights and not doing so many loads of laundry each week.
“He said I was using it too much,” Tara said. “I said I wash my clothes when they are dirty and that it was wrong for him to bother me about this.”
This went on for months until one Sunday, Tara gathered up a basket of dirty clothes and went to wash them.
Except the washer and dryer were gone. It was just an empty space.
“I finally got a hold of the landlord and he said that he had read the lease and that it didn’t mention access to the laundry and so he removed it,” she said. “It was such a filthy, despicable thing to do … They locked them in the garage and were doing their laundry at their grown-up kid’s place just so I couldn’t do laundry. I’ve been looking at my options with the Residential Tenancy Branch but I don’t have anything in writing. I didn’t even imagine this could happen … using a laundromat sucks.”
As always, get things spelled out in writing.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
