National Post (National Edition)
Tenants create house of horrors
KINGSTON, ONT. • Simon Andrew rented a three-bedroom house to a couple and their grown son in late 2014. He said the family “interviewed well” and came with references and seemed like “really nice people.”
But the family kept a goat, rabbits, chickens and pigeons, which ate and defecated everywhere. They used buckets of water to clean the floor and swept the slurry of dirt, garbage and animal feces down the heating vents. Cleaners had to chisel dried feces from the corners of the walls.
He estimated he removed nine tonnes of garbage, including used tampons, diabetic needles and trays of urine left in the drawers and, months after the family left, the cleanup continues. “I could tell you things that no human should know about what happens to mould when it grows on semen,” Andrew said.
“It was a biohazard, it was a fire hazard, it was a health hazard.”
Andrew said the house had also been “grease-bombed,” which involves placing a piece of fatty meat in the oven, turning the heat to high and leaving the door slightly ajar.
As the fumes from the meat fill the house, the grease from it collects at the top of the walls and runs down.
It took Andrew more than six months and a ruling from the Landlord and Tenant Board to finally evict the family.
But because the damage was done by tenants who legally rented the house, Andrew said he has little recourse because the dispute is treated as a landlord-tenant dispute under the province’s Landlord-Tenant Act, legislation Andrew said is inadequate to address his situation.
“The law just does not protect people. I’m the victim here,” he added. “If I went to your house and did what they did to my house, I’d be charged criminally.”
Among the debris the family left were overdue bills, including $1,400 for utilities, a $1,700 propane bill, and a $2,000 telephone and Internet bill.
“I rented for 25 years, I’m all for tenants’ rights, but that presumes reasonable people behaving normally,” Andrew said. “There’s no law to stop anyone from keeping a goat in the house.” Actually, there is. The City of Kingston’s animal control bylaw states that: “No person shall keep livestock or poultry on any property except in a veterinary hospital or clinic or as part of a cultural, recreational or educational event, including a public or agricultural fair.”
Andrew estimates that repairing the house will end up costing him about $30,000, and he said he is frustrated by the family’s ability to take advantage of the rental system without consequence.
“They are leaving a trail of destruction of other people’s lives, that’s what they are really doing. They are screwing up my life.”