Landlord must take action if tenant refuses to clean up after their dog
the building owner can do. It is really disgusting. Shouldn’t the super and the building owner do more about this?
A: All tenants should clean up after their animals. You can certainly politely ask the new tenant to clean up after their dog. If they fail to clean up, the landlord has an obligation to take action to avoid the interference caused to the other tenants.
Where dog dirt is found around the complex, a landlord would normally remind all tenants with dogs to clean up after them. If the problem continues, a landlord should investigate by asking tenants of the building who is failing to clean up. With evidence that this tenant is the cause, you or the landlord can contact the city’s bylaw enforcement services at 311, because there is a “stoop and scoop” requirement in the Animal Care and Control By-law.
The landlord can also take action under the Residential Tenancies Act. The landlord can give a notice of termination if what a tenant is doing is a substantial interference of the reasonable enjoyment of other tenants. The fact that you are finding this so unpleasant may well be enough to enable your landlord to give that notice of termination. If parents will give the landlord letters expressing the impact on them and their children, that would help too.
After a landlord gives the tenant a notice of termination, the tenant can save their tenancy by rectifying the problem. If they start consistently cleaning up their dog, they will not be evicted. However, if they continue to fail to clean up after their dog or revert to their current ways within the six months after being given the notice, the landlord can apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) to terminate their tenancy.
The LTB would want to hear evidence from several tenants who are bothered by the situation, both to identify the offending tenant and to say how that tenant’s failure to act as a responsible pet owner affects the witnesses’ enjoyment of the rental property.
A landlord could apply to the LTB just for the cost of cleaning up the dog dirt, without seeking to terminate the tenancy. But that may not stop the tenant from continuing his failure to “stoop and scoop,” and the other tenants would continue to suffer. The threat to evict is meant to get the tenant to fulfil their obligations and stop interfering with their neighbours’ enjoyment of the property.
Most landlords would choose to give a notice and apply for an eviction order for interference with other tenants’ reasonable enjoyment as the means of getting the tenant to stop their behaviour, so that all tenants can enjoy the use of the lawn.