If a landlord doesn’t respect the place they own or manage, then it goes to reason that they won’t take care of it - or their tenants.
So I really feel for the tenants of a North Burnaby rental building in the Heights neighbourhood who have been emailing me for a while about the person who manages their apartments.
It’s been a litany of complaints from people who say it’s been a “reign of terror” over the tiniest of things.
The latest is a series of screenshots I was sent from a tenant that shows some despicable behaviour from the property manager. The tenant noticed that the building’s front door was bent and would not close, leaving the place vulnerable to thieves. Anyone can just get into the building without a key, part of the reason why I’m not naming the building.
So the tenant contacted the property manager and landlord with photos and a request to have it fixed.
In response, the property manager told the tenant to “shut up” about making such requests.
The tenant responded by saying they are considering contacting a lawyer to resolve the situation because of its urgency. That’s when the property manager threw out a real whopper.
“Ok go ahead if you have money (you) wouldn’t stay here and challenge me you have nothing you are poor person and racism (sic), that’s it,” reads the message.
Yikes.
That’s really something. I’ve had some bad landlords before, but nothing even remotely like this.
It also gets worse. In another message, the property manager threatens to evict the tenant for asking him to fix the front door.
“Don’t make me do something to kick you out,” the message reads.
Double-yikes.
“I've kept a file on every insane thing he's done far beyond our text messages,” the tenant told me, adding that they have gone to the Residential Tenancy Branch before, but haven’t gotten any action.
Many tenants are at the mercy of their landlords.
Times are tough enough for Burnaby renters without having to deal with this kind of ugly behaviour. Rents are in the top-10 for the most expensive in Canada.
The average asking rent for all Canadian properties listed on Rentals.ca in April was $1,675 per month, a decrease of $167 or 9 per cent from $1,842 in April of last year and down 1 per cent monthly.
But in Burnaby, it’s a much different story, according to the report.
Burnaby came in ninth on the national list for average monthly rent in April for a one-bedroom home at $1,656 and third for average monthly rent for a two-bedroom at $2,189.
Year over year, average monthly rent for a one-bedroom in Burnaby is up 8.9 per cent and up 6.5 per cent for a two-bedroom.
So, yeah, it’s a struggle just trying to pay the bills without the person in charge of the building making your life miserable.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
