Renters of Vancouver: friendly or harassing?

A woman learns to listen to her gut when she’s confronted by increasingly inappropriate behaviour

> BY KATE WILSON

Renters of Vancouver takes an intimate look at how the city’s residents are dealing with the housing crisis. Tenants choose to remain nameless when they share their stories.

“Isaw an ad on Craigslist for a studio that accepted dogs. The building manager wrote me back right away and asked if I could come by that afternoon. I was on my way out of the door to meet some friends, but I decided to make it happen. I’d been looking for a year to find a place that was under $1,000 a month that allowed pets. I thought I was so lucky to see this one.

“The first warning sign was when he told me that the unit would normally be more expensive but that he wouldn’t increase the rent because he ‘liked me’—a ‘smart, nice young woman’ who was replacing a ‘bitch who got a boyfriend and is leaving’. I thought that was strange, but I’d been looking for so long and it was a really beautiful suite. I decided to take it.

“He then asked me to come up and sign the lease in his unit and have a beer. I said that I was on my way to something but I’d have a glass of water and do the paperwork. After the fact, I thought the offer was a little weird, but I assumed he was just being really friendly.

“When I moved in, he figured out my schedule pretty fast. He would time his walks with his dog so that he would be going down the stairwell at the same time as me, and he’d say, ‘Well, we may as well walk our pets together, eh?’ I didn’t know what else to do, so I’d agree. He was very chatty. I learned his life story from beginning to end, and all the bad things that had happened to him. Initially, I was very nice to him, because he’d had a lot of trauma in his life. Being a compassionate person, I wanted to listen and help.

“Then he would start texting me to hang out. I didn’t really feel comfortable saying no, because I knew that there would be animosity if I did, and he’s my building manager. So he’d come over and vent to me. He’d say things like, ‘Wow, you’re way nicer than the girl that used to live here before.’

“Another time, I had to take some cheques up to him and he said, ‘Oh, I just finished making some dinner—you should stay.’ I told him that I’d rather just leave the cheques. His dog was jumping up at me in the doorway. He said to come in so I didn’t let his pet out—and then I was in his apart-