Were you a snow angel in Burnaby this week?
What I mean is did you follow the city’s plea and shovel the sidewalks and driveways for your neighbours?
One Burnaby landlord did it as well as the sidewalk and driveway outside of his own house. He also shovelled out a parking space on the street after the city plowed a bunch of snow next to the sidewalk.
But now he doesn’t want anyone to use it – even his own renter, known as T.M.
“I stayed at my girlfriend’s house the night of the big snowfall because it was too dangerous to drive home,” said T.M. “When I went home the next morning, I parked out front of the place where I rent because there was actually space open. I’m not allowed to park in the driveway ever and so I have to park on the street. An hour later, I get a called from the landlord telling me to move my car because he is ‘saving’ that spot for a friend who would be coming by later. Remember, this is on the public street. He says, ‘I cleared out that space for a reason and so I don’t want anyone else to use it.’ After I reluctantly moved my car, he put out garbage bins to block it until his buddy came over. Imagine how entitled you have to be to think you can just reserve space on a public street.”
Other readers have written me lately about how some landlords are not living up to their obligations when it comes to providing parking spaces to tenants.
“About the war on parking for rental suites,” wrote June. “The bylaw states that if you have a rental suite, you must provide off-street parking for the rental suite as far as I understand it. Maybe if landlords provided the required parking for tenants there would not be such a problem because I don't think the landlord be keen on parking down the street because there was no parking in front of their own house because someone else parked in front of their house. Just a thought. It might save nasty notes on windshields. I know I'm a homeowner who does not rent a suite out and do not park in front of other’s houses and try and have visitors only park in front of my own house.”
But some Burnaby landlords have contacted me recently to also share thoughts on dealing with bad tenants – saying it’s not just about bad landlords.
“The tenancy branch is a complete joke,” wrote Rich. “Some years ago I had a tenant sign a one year lease only to break the lease 1.5 months later. I kept the damage deposit with a letter of explanation but they took me to the tenancy branch who in turn had a teleconference set up. To make this short, the tenancy branch made me return twice the damage deposit because I ‘stole their money.’ When I asked about the fact that tenants signed a one-year lease that they skipped on, the person from the tenancy branch said ‘you would need to rent it anyway, doesn't matter if it's a month or a year later so why would you feel you had the right to keep their money.’ All this while the tenant loudly laughing on the phone. I immediately sold my condo and got out of the renting business. If the governing body can't help and be fair, then this happens. Bad tenants and bad landlords alike seems to have the power to make things bad for all the good tenants and good landlords. I blame the governing body that could keep it fair for everyone by imposing fair rules and fines for people that don't follow simple rules.”
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44
