Landlords responding to COVID-19 by prioritizing essential services

ability given the difficult choices they are faced with.

Healthcare officials are urging people to “flatten the curve” and take whatever precautions they can to decrease the spread of COVID-19. Slowing the spread of the virus decreases the load placed on our healthcare facilities, allowing them to handle new cases as they come in without being overwhelmed.

In these times, the restrictions you have described are sensible precautions. To limit the spread of the virus and to protect their employees, landlords may have to close common facilities, and many are doing so. Losing access to the fitness room may be inconvenient, but landlords have to balance that against the risks of keeping these facilities open while the spread of COVID-19 increases daily.

Many landlords are cancelling showings for apartments, increasing cleaning of shared spaces, setting up hand sanitizing stations and closing amenity areas, among other measures. Landlords are making these decisions with the best interests of their tenants and employees in mind. No tenant or landlord wants to have an outbreak of the virus in their building.

As a tenant, there are precautions that you should take too. For example, public health authorities are asking that everyone wash their hands thoroughly and often, avoid touching their face with their hands, avoid close contact with others and avoid crowds. Public health and government officials are regularly updating their recommendations, and you should stay up to date including following the news at ottawacitizen.com.

We should all be practicing social distancing at this time. Social distancing involves limiting the number of people you come into close contact with. That may mean working from home or cancelling plans with friends and family. It also includes trying to maintain a six-foot distance from others whenever possible.

At the present time, you should only make repair requests for urgent issues (for example, not having heat or water). This precaution would limit your own risk, the risk to employees and the risk to any other tenants that need help. Certainly, if there is an urgent issue for which you need your landlord, you should contact them. However, if the problem can wait, then it would be best to hold off on your request for now.

You can certainly continue to exercise while the building ’s fitness room is temporarily closed during this pandemic. For instance, you can go outside for a walk or run, do bodyweight exercises in your apartment, access online fitness programs or take the stairs instead of the elevator (thereby helping with social distancing in the elevator).

We are all in this together, trying to limit the spread of this virus and “flatten the curve.” That will often mean making sacrifices to protect others and ourselves.