Unhappy landlord stories not front-page worthy, says reader

I am writing this letter to express my profound disappointment with the Cape Breton Post regarding its decision to publish ‘Landlord unhappy with Cape Breton tenant’ (Jan. 9) on the front page and ‘What a Mess,’ (Jan. 27), once again on the front page.

It appears that front-page stories are chosen because they are the stories that are most likely to sell the paper, but perhaps there should be more consideration given to the potential harm stories such as this can cause the community.

I have been a residential and commercial landlord for more than 27 years and I own many properties within the CBRM. I am also involved in several other businesses in the CBRM. However, my experience as a businessperson in our community is vastly different than the bleak picture that the aforementioned articles would suggest.

In fact, I will state unequivocally that my experiences over the years have been more than positive. Further, it is reasonable to assume that there is always more than one side to a story.

Clearly, the situations that these landlords found themselves in were unfortunate. However, you will note in the first story that the property owner was an “absentee” landlord and was relying on someone else to manage his properties for him.

In my experience that model can work with larger rental properties (50 units +) and particularly larger commercial rental properties, but it is a recipe for disaster with smaller multi-unit residential properties because it is cost prohibitive to employ an on-site manager/ superintendent.

In the second situation, you will note that these folks indicated that they had little to no experience in this type of business. Now I don’t mind telling you that I made a lot fewer mistakes in 1999 than I did in 1989 when I first got in the business, and even fewer in 2009. Therefore, the lesson here is that if you are going to open a grocery store with no experience in the grocery business you should expect a bumpy ride.

But the real tragedy as far as I’m concerned is the fact that the Cape Breton Post took the time, effort and resources to go to these places, carry out interviews and take photos and devote a large portion of the front pages to these stories.

So, I ask the Cape Breton Post the following questions:

1. Why would you publish useless stories which serve no purpose other than to portray the CBRM as an undesirable place to invest or to do business?

2. Are you not aware that your very existence relies partially on the business community and the ads we buy?

3. Did you even consider that the tenants that lived in these properties would now be identifiable by people from those neighborhoods, family members and other acquaintances?

4. Did you consider that when a person or persons find themselves in those situations as tenants that there are valid reasons and these reasons are typically mental health, addiction and/or poverty related, or they are simply down on their luck?

I hope that in the future you can seek out more meaningful stories that do not portray the business climate and the people in Cape Breton in such a poor light. Craig Boudreau Sydney