photo Mark Wenzel
After their tenants were arrested on drug charges and the apartment nearly burned down, the deGroots thought they had just cause to evict their errant tenant.
Not so fast, said officials at the Landlord and Tenant Tribunal Board.
“At the tribunal, our case was dismissed. We lost,” Catherine deGroot said from the shaded deck of her home near Elmvale.
“Where are the rights for the landlords?” her husband Tony demanded.
Struggling with a recent ALS diagnosis, his frustration has turned from his disease to their inability to evict a tenant from their rental property on Blake Street that was the scene of an early morning fire on Aug. 12.
The deGroots learned about the fire when they listened to a voicemail that had been left for them at 6:30 a.m., Aug. 12, requesting they call the Barrie fire department.
They were told the fire started in the bungalow’s front apartment in the basement when a mattress that had been leaning against the wall caught fire.
Catherine deGroot said she knows exactly where the mattress was, because she’d entered the premises — after leaving letters requesting the tenant be available at 5:30 p.m., Friday, Aug. 9 to meet with her — and had a friend photograph what she calls “the absolute squalour” of the apartment.
Clothes strewn around the apartment and hanging from the kitchen sink were the least of her worries. Four cats meowed pitifully, both from hunger and the discomfort of a full litter box and flea bites.
“We couldn’t stay in there long, the fleas were up to here,” she said, pointing to above her ankle. “My feet were black with them.”
Dishes and dirt were piled on every surface, and deGroot admits she missed the syringes and condoms firefighters later told her they found in the basement.
She now believes her tenant wasn’t available to meet with her Friday because she was in jail.
Although the tenant wasn’t charged, a drug bust did occur at the home June 13 by the Barrie police department’s street crime unit.
According to police, at that time two men, a woman and sleeping child were found in the home on Blake Street. A third man entered the home, and he was promptly arrested for cocaine possession. One of the two other men was arrested for five drug-related charges and the other man was released. The young woman was arrested and released. In all, police found almost $2,000 worth of prescription drugs and cocaine and approximately $4,000 in cash.
The deGroots say they originally had a good relationship with the woman. But when her circumstances changed, when rent wasn’t paid and neighbours noticed drug activity, the relationship soured.
The tenants living in the back portion of the bungalow called 911 when fire broke out early that Monday morning.
“We were just falling asleep watching a movie when the TV and A/C flickered,” Jason Malak said. “‘We thought we’d blown a fuse, but the other lights were still on. Then I could hear noises underneath the kitchen — we don’t have a downstairs — and I thought someone was breaking in. Then we heard voices and I noticed a little bit of smoke.”‘
Malak said he opened his door and was greeted by smoke pouring out of the other apartment’s air-conditioner.
“There was a lot more smoke outside. We called 911,” he said.
His girlfriend is about seven months pregnant and was taken to Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre for smoke inhalation concerns before being released.
The couple was removed from their apartment — that was mostly untouched by the fire — until the hydro and water could safely be turned back on.
Public fire and life safety officer with the Barrie fire department, Samantha Hoffman, said the fire was suspicious in nature because no one was living there when it started.
“Yet there was evidence to show that someone had been in the unit shortly before the fire,” she said.
Four cats perished in the fire.
The deGroots’ insurance company has boarded up the former tenant’s apartment and said work would soon began to clean up after the fire.
But the deGroots’ concern is that their tenant still has legal rights to return once it’s fixed.
“Our fear is (she) is still tied to Blake Street and we still have to get her out,” he said.
Running her Landlord Legal business in Barrie and Meaford, April Stewart is a busy woman.
Stewart said she’s seen many drug-related attempted evictions by landlords fail for any number of reasons.
“We do a ton of drug cases. It’s a significant part of our caseload,” Stewart said. “We see all of the drug or alcohol and other societal problems.”
She said she’s seen apartments become flophouses where a “tenant’s associates can show up, hang out and find a place to sleep” without the landlord unaware what’s going on.
Steward represents landlords at the Landlord and Tenant Tribunal Boards because she says while tenants can get free representation, landlords can’t.
“Sometimes, because the tenant went to jail, the landlord thinks he can change the locks,” she said. “But the tribunal board is there for a reason, to terminate tenancies. Nobody else can do that.
“So just because your tenant is in jail, or not paying rent for some reason, that doesn’t mean the agreement can be terminated.”
The legal paperwork landlords are required to complete can be daunting, Stewart said, and tenant evictions very much rely on the ‘very high threshold of proof’ landlords must submit to the tribunal.
Stewart said when criminal charges are pending against a tenant, having the arresting police officer attend the tribunal is often the proof the tribunal requires.
“If there are reasonable grounds (presented), a conviction would stick,” she said.
Landlord Nancy Lowe knows a little about dealing with unruly tenants.
After checking all three tenants’ references and meeting their parents, the Barrie woman allowed the three twentysomethings to move into her rental property on Campbell Avenue a few years ago. She said the tenants punched holes in the walls, destroyed the rug, scraped enamel off the bathtub and broke the glass patio doors and several windows.
Two years later, Lowe has been in and out of court and finally garnisheed the wages of one of her former tenants — to the tune of $21,300.
“I had to get the judge to order the parents to serve them,” Lowe said. “My advice to landlords is, stick with it. It’s a lot of legwork, but I didn’t give up and got the money they owed, plus my expenses back.”
In the meantime, the deGroots are responsible for hiring a pest control company to rid the apartment of fleas because that’s not covered under their fire damage policy. - Cheryl - Barrie Examiner
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