Trailblaze

Some people are pioneers, they set new standards and literally make things, that were unknown to others, new. Some of these are good things, some of them aren’t.

Mel’s mom recently went through a divorce, that saw her left with her home, but very little money to support it. In an effort to reclaim some independence she made the difficult decision to move from her home, and attempt to enter the potentially risky game of land lordship. Her first, and currently only, set of tenants took some time to decide to move into the place, but she held it for an extra month, vacant, because of their promise to take it long term.

They moved in a few months ago, and immediately the trouble started.

Typically, to those of you who don’t know, when you rent a place you exchange payment for shelter; well these individuals don’t seem to understand that concept. Their first and last month rent cheque bounced. Apologetically they’ve made excuses and ‘moves’ to pay Mel’s mom back; nothing has yet to come through. 3 months in and she has no deposit, no rent, and the place was “all inclusive” which means she’s covering the cost of their hydro, water, gas, etc.

She finally got fed up and has started an eviction process, I don’t claim to know anything about it save that it largely protects tenants (I use the term loosely) and squatters do seem to have a lot of rights in the matter.

Today, as the name on a forwarding address, Mel’s mom got a call from their previous land-lords. Apparently (allegedly?) they had been hired as professional house sitters for this couple. While the owners were away on an extended vacation, these same tenants held a garage sale; selling every piece of furniture and valuable they could find.

I’m not a violent person, I’m usually pretty level headed, but this is the sort of thing that REALLY pisses me off, it’s taking advantage of people plain and simple. It’s using the law, that’s there to protect other tenants from overzealous and greedy land owners, to take advantage of a woman who wanted to get back to her own life, maybe try for a bit of financial independence in her life.

The way it looks now, if she can evict them, and IF they leave (eviction is one thing, but there’s no enforcement that I know of) she’ll be burdened with too much debt to recover; she’ll have to sell her home. Sure, things are way worse for many other people, but this is one of those things that just didn’t need to happen. And my guess, likely, those same people are going to pull the same crap on someone else again right after. What’s to stop them?

I’d say, if you’re in the neighbourhood, maybe drop by and let them know what you think 65 Spencer Street in Ottawa, knock on the door and politely ask if they’ve paid Lynn any rent yet.

Update Oct. 6: currently paid-up in cash, though we’ll see how next month turns out. Limited framed print in the hallway seems to be the first “MIA”

Posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 9:23 pm. Filed under: Uncategorized RSS 2.0 feed.