Why housing is hard to find

Dear Editor:

It is no wonder that most of the landlords of B.C. who had either homes or condos for rent at one time decided, almost en masse, to go into Air B&B’s.

The fault is largely that of our provincial government who has made it so easy for tenants through the Rental Tribunal Branch to ask for absolutely anything and everything because they know the Adjudicator will rule in their favour.

Example: a tenant did considerable damage to a home I had for rent. He hung a TV on a wall and perforated the wallboard with holes trying to find a stud. He ripped part of a wallboard off trying to remove some of his paintings. He punctured the wallboard in one of the rooms hanging up dozens of acoustic tiles. He left the home in a mess despite his claims of having cleaned it.

He allowed his dog to urinate and defecate on the bedroom rug so that it had to be replaced. (We normally don’t allow dogs because, during 40 years of being a landlord we know the kind of damage they can do, but he cried and cried so we finally gave in.) The dog also dug up the lawn so that we had to spend many hours later to fix it up.

The tenant didn’t take care of either the lawn or the garden, letting both go to weeds, although this was part of the rental agreement. Eventually, after being forced to leave, he continued to harass us by contacting the RTB and lying about the way he had been outed.

Because of the latitude that the RTB gives tenants he managed to convince the Arbitrator that not only should he have a month’s rent reimbursed, but he should also have his damage and pet deposits returned. To top it off he demanded a year’s rent. Since it cost him only $100 to file this fictitious claim he decided to go all out.

One of the real problems is that we have no way of warning his future landlords of what a pathetic excuse he is as a tenant. Anything we say on public media would be cause for lawsuits.

No wonder other tenants have such a difficult time finding accommodation.

Frank Martens

Summerland