OK, just so you know, this isn’t even an eviction. I had a tenant “allegedly” steal a vehicle from another tenant last year at knife point. I know, I get to deal with great people.
Worse yet, this was part of my pilot project to help young kids get off the street by putting them in some of my shared accommodation properties. Now just to add some perspective to this, I am not Mother Teresa, or even close!, part of this was to help fill rooms and some was indeed to try and help people who needed it.
Quick recap on the project, out of 11 tenants, I evicted or assisted nine of them to leave, the other two will never be allowed back. These were 18-24 year old kids who wanted financial assistance, housing assistance and typically had problems at home. The problem with the system I see is they were never made accountable.
They didn’t have to work for their money, they didn’t have to show up for job interviews, they didn’t have to get up in the morning. Also since they didn’t pay for anything and new housing would be found for them, they also weren’t responsible for anything. No smoking, sure, whenever Bill wasn’t around, no overnight visitors, sure whenever Bill wasn’t around. Anyway you get the idea.
Anyway, I will post more either late tonight or tomorrow as the story unfolds!!!
I had hoped to have my eviction package all complete by now, but time has managed to get away from me and the project keeps expanding. Currently I am just finishing page four of the outline up, I already have about a dozen pages written and I have ideas for about a dozen more! My original deadline of December 31st is long past, but I will keep working away.
I was just checking some of the stats earlier today and I have had over 300 hits on the blog all directly related to evictions in Alberta. Obviously people are looking for information, I might as well be the one to supply it! If I have helped you previously with an eviction, or you have suggestions about what to include, I would love to hear from you so I can help guide the next person in a similar situation.
My goal is for the completed work to have the whole process covered from whether you need to provide a 14 day eviction notice to the final steps to regaining possession of your property from a tenant.
Great title, lousy article. At least that is how many of you will feel when you read this hoping to find an easy way to collect money from tenants you have evicted. Although some people have had success with collecting money from evicted tenants, unless the outstanding amount owed is over a couple thousand dollars you may be better off letting it go.
The time and energy you waste trying to collect could probably better serve you by spending extra time finding and screening for exceptional tenants to replace the less than stellar former inhabitants. For those of you looking to collect, though here is some information to help you with the process of either garnishing a former tenant’s wages, or potentially seizing tenant’s assets to pay outstanding deb.
If you are planning on doing this yourself, here is the link to the governments PDF on Getting and Collecting a Writ of Enforcement in Alberta. This 40 page document (yes 40 pages!!) walks you through the various forms and processes, but most importantly, it says this.
“Legal enforcement of a Judgment is often complex and difficult. Many aspects of creditor law and legal procedure have not been explained in this brochure. Court employees are not allowed to give you legal advice. Please consult a lawyer if you have any questions.”
They also include the phone number for the Lawyer Referral Service sponsored by the Law Society of Alberta which is 1-800-661-1095 or can be found at this link, Law Society of Alberta Lawyer Referral Service. You can receive up to half an hour free legal counsel by using this service. Once you have received some advice you can decide at that point whether to pay for additional advice or whether it may be worth it for you.
Due to the complexity, the other option is to have one of the collection/bailiff services do the process for you. Costs for this start at about $700 and can move upwards for additional services, so be sure you are receive a breakdown of what the potential charges will be prior to committing to anything.
Also, this is different from simply sending the tenant to a simple collection agency that attempts to collect outstanding money for a percentage of the debt. Companies like Foster and Co, Kurseshi and Company or Serv-it offer the full service of going through the courts and garnishing wages and can offload the time you would spend on the process.
If you have had experience collecting, or attempting to collect from former tenants, we would love to hear your thoughts on the process.
I receive a considerable amount of emails and searches on our blog regarding evictions every week and quite often, it is the same or very similar questions. Here is a list of my top five eviction questions to help you out.
1) Alberta Eviction Question One – Can a tenant be evicted in the winter in Alberta?
a. It’s cold outside, the weather can be frightful, but yes if a tenant doesn’t pay their rent or causes a serious breach of the rental agreement they can be evicted. The tenant and the landlord have a contract that both sides have to uphold and is regulated under the Residential Tenancies Act of Alberta.
2) Alberta Eviction Question Two – Can a landlord cut-off utilities to make a tenant leave?
a. Absolutely not, if the landlord shuts off heat, water or any other utility that he is responsible for paying they can be fined and find themselves in a very bad spot. The secondary question that comes with this is no, you cannot take the front door away for repair either, nor can you change the locks on the tenant without going through the proper procedures.
3) Alberta Eviction Question Three – How expensive is it to evict a tenant?
a. If you go through the Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service (RTDRS) there is a $75 filing fee to have a hearing. If the hearing officer decides in your favour, the tenant is responsible for paying you the $75. Unfortunately collecting the outstanding $75 can be much harder than winning the hearing. If you win the hearing and the tenant still does not vacate it can cost you another $400 to hire a bailiff and have the tenant removed.
b. There are also full service eviction companies that will charge you from $600 to $1,000 and up for the service and depending on how much additional work is required the fee will continue to increase.
4) Alberta Eviction Question Four – Do I need a bailiff to evict a tenant?
a. For most evictions, you can complete the entire process yourself through the RTDRS and may not require a bailiff. The only time during the eviction process that you absolutely require the bailiff is if the tenants receive an order from eviction and do not vacate the premises. At this point, you require a bailiff to serve the tenant(s) with the writ of possession which gives you your property back and allow you to legally change the locks and allow the police to charge the tenants with trespassing if they return.
5) Alberta Eviction Question Five – What is the fastest way to evict a tenant?
a. Each circumstance is different, but generally, the quickest method is to file immediately with the RTDRS and get a hearing date. This will be the quickest sure fire method to evict a tenant. You can provide a 14 day eviction notice to a tenant, and then if it appears they will not be vacating you can file at RTDRS, but it will add an additional week or more to the process.
b. In the case of a tenant causing serious damage to the property or threatening the landlord or other tenants, you can provide them with a 24 hour eviction notice. Once again, if they do not vacate you still have to file with the RTDRS and go through the process.
Hopefully these provide you with some answers that help you move forward, either as a landlord or as a tenant. As a bonus, here is one additional eviction question. Alberta Eviction Bonus Question – How long does an eviction take?
If you follow the systems we recommend (including properly screening tenants), a landlord can have their property back and the tenants evicted in approximately 15 days. Depending on the circumstances, the hearing officer may allow the tenant to stay on and make additional payments to catch up outstanding rent on a set schedule. If they miss any of the payments on this set schedule, you can take your property back within a few days.
If you are a landlord and found this site while you were searching for eviction help please take a minute to register so you can receive any further updates we have regarding evictions, landlording, and what is happening in the Alberta economy and Real Estate market. Click here to Register to receive updates.
I’m still working on a walkthrough to help landlords with evictions and updates on it will also be sent out as it nears completion. It will include hints and advice to help streamline the process and to make it most effective for landlords, so if you want to be in the loop be sure to register. Register to receive updates.
Finally if you have some eviction stories, insights or questions to leave me a comment and I will answer back as quickly as possible! HEre is some more additional eviction information for you;
What an anticlimactic day. After all the drama, all the issues, all the problems, this latest eviction seems to be winding down with barely a whimper.
I ended up meeting with the bailiff today and we posted the notice, changed the locks and then away we went, patiently awaiting SWAT boy to show up at the property so I could then bring the police in and charge him with trespassing. After such a lengthy eviction and between the drinking, the smoking, the fighting and of course SWAT, I felt he would freak out just a smidgen upon finding he was legally locked out of his former abode.
I even called his cell phone and left a message warning him of the implications of trying to re-enter the property without me present. Now according to the other tenant, he had left the previous morning around 7:30 with his backpack and hadn’t made it home yet, so initially I was concerned he had already taken off, but when we checked his room to verify, he still had some of his possessions in the room.
I made sure my evening schedule was clear, in case I needed to rush over with the police in tow, and then I sat back to wait for the impending explosion. Finally just before 2:00 he called!!
He was calling from a different number, which threw me off initially, and inquired whether I had been to the property the day prior, as he had been away. He then very politely asked if he could leave his items in his room over the weekend and come back to pick them up on Tuesday. At this point he still wasn’t aware of the voicemail I had left him, the trespassing warnings and the locks being changed. Then the conversation took a turn.
He had actually started to take responsibility for his drinking and had checked himself into a detox center the day before, where he was going to be staying until Tuesday. Then later in the day Tuesday, he was transferring into a nine month program for alcohol abuse outside of the city where he would be setup in a group home environment away from the bright lights of the city and the allure of casinos, bars and liquor stores. He even apologized about owing me the rent money and that he wants to make it up, but won’t be able to until he finishes the program.
Wow! Of course he may be blowing smoke, but at least he is attempting to start to take responsibility for his own actions and it’s a positive step, too bad it took such a toll on all of us. He was a totally different individual when I initially met him, so I can only hope the alcohol was the factor that pushed him into becoming such a problem. Of course after all this I felt deflated. I had all this adrenaline ready for the impending phone call, the eventual problems and confrontation at the property and the fall out that was sure to come, then in moments all the hostility was gone and now I’m left wondering about the next step.
I’m pretty sure I won’t be seeing any of the money owed me for rent, damages, RTDRS hearings and bailiffs. I’m more positive than ever that I am burnt out by these properties and I am quite sure this will be a positive turning point for us. We will take this opportunity to move forward, unload some of our properties that have become more work than reward and start to refocus on the areas of Real Estate that have been most effective and rewarding for us. Hopefully SWAT boy uses this as a turning point for himself as well. Anyone out there interested in a slightly used rooming house with great cash flow?
A small village must be very upset my tenant hasn’t come home in a while. He doesn’t seem to get it, I have even tried using little words, but apparently to no avail.
The Villagers patiently await the return of their idiot
He was to be out as per the court order at noon today, so around 10:30 he called this morning to inform me he was going to appeal the eviction. You have to admire his persistence, if you aren’t busy shaking your head at him.
Not sure what makes him think he will win if he can even get an appeal started at the 11th hour. To add to the problems over the weekend he blew up at the other upstairs tenant again, the end result being he broke the mirror attached to his door and the door itself is beyond repair. Nothing your typical great tenant wouldn’t do, right?
Today’s issue was when he yelled at the other guy again, after the fellow shut the door in his face. He then pushed the door open and went towards the fellow who apparently clocked him pretty good in self defense, knocking SWAT boy down and drawing some blood. They had to help him up and guide him out of the room. Just another day at the nuthouse.
Anyway, at this point I confirmed he hadn’t left, filed the appropriate paperwork (affidavit of service, affidavit of default and writ of possession) at the courthouse. Now within 24-48 hours I get a call back that my writ is ready, I get to go downtown and grab it and then I can bring in a bailiff to post it at the property for an outrageous fee and within 24 hours of that point, SWAT boy is officially trespassing on my property if he re-enters or is found sleeping there.
So after all the drama, SWAT boy couldn’t attend his own eviction hearing. Guess when you are busy you have other priorities in life! Apparently he had to work, he even called into the hearing office today to tell them he couldn’t make it, but they felt it wasn’t enough notice to postpone.
It may have also had to do with the fact he wasn’t going to win. Due to the law, he needs one full business day to move out, so he is to be out by Monday November 16th at noon. Oh and I was awarded a judgment of $418.55, along with $25.71 per day from Saturday on until he is gone. I went directly to the courthouse and filed the eviction order right after the hearing so all the correct procedures are in place.
After that I showed up at the property at about 2:40 to check on things and make sure it looked fine, not expecting him to be there, after all he had to work. Even the other tenant informed me he was out, but I knocked anyway. Lo and behold out pops SWAT boy!
I handed him the eviction order and he grabbed it and walked past me and out to the front door where he proceeded to ring the bell a couple of times. Then exclaimed, “oh it does work, I couldn’t tell since you always just walk in”.
Now just so every landlord and tenant reading this is aware, a landlord cannot walk into a regular rental property unannounced. He needs to provide at least 24 hours notice. This however is not a regular rental property, it is a shared accommodation and the only portion the individual rents from me is the room, which I do not enter without providing notice. The common areas are the areas for everyone’s use, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the laundry room and the living room. I do not require notice to access these areas, he doesn’t seem to get that, but now it doesn’t really matter.
So that is the positive news, the reality is he may not leave Monday, and I doubt I will be able to collect any of the judgment monies, although I do have the option of garnishing his wages and attaching an outstanding amount on his credit history. I will see how Monday goes and weigh my options at that time. If he leaves great, if he doesn’t, then on to the next step a affidavit of default and a writ of possession.
This buys him another day or two, but the result ends up the same, although it becomes more fun for me if he does stay on, as I can have him charged with trespassing. And given the chance to make his life miserable, I am at the point I will be all over it!
So far, another successful eviction story, if you don’t count the time lost, the energy wasted or the negative attitude that this creates.
Do you realize the number one search string that brings people to this site is hinged around the word eviction? Ironically for the last three or four months my entire life has revolved around evicting problem tenants who believe they have the right to disrespect my properties, don’t find it necessary to live by societies, never mind my rules and who are trying to take advantage of my trying to initially help them.
Along the way, I have also run into a steady stream of other landlords and investors with similar problems. I haven’t been able to help all of them, but I have been able to help the majority ease their fears and concerns about the process. After some prompting over a bottle of wine (or more) about opportunities out there, a thought came into play.
I guess it’s finally time to take advantage of my experiences and turn them into a tool to help other landlords. I’m currently in the process of putting a package together that will walk people through the eviction process in Alberta, it will explain the steps, the costs, the potential pitfalls and your various options. Anyone out there interested in this? There will be a cost associated with it, but considering the costs that can run up with a bad tenant it will be very affordable.
I’ll potentially be looking for a couple of people to review it and I should have a draft available by the end of November. Let me know if you would like to be one of those people, if I get a flurry of people it will end up being a random draw of some type (with preference going to people with excellent grammar!). With any luck, it should be available for purchase and as a giveaway to lucky readers sometime in December, unless of course I get stuck in more evictions!
If you wish to be updated and you were brought here by the search engine, or have friends who don’t read this blog, but have eviction problems, simply register on the site and you will be notified when it is ready! Register by clicking here. If you can also take a minute and please answer the polls below it would be appreciated because they will help me with some questions I have!
How refreshing, every day my thoughts about people and helping out get dragged further down. Case in point, SWAT boy caused a bit more stress Sunday.
Here I am sitting at home when the neighbour to the house calls. When the tactical unit set up outside the property, they broke the fence so they could accurately point guns at my resident moron. Now the city will fix it, hopefully along with the two door locks they broke, but I have to wait for the claim to go through etc.
Anyway, the neighbour next door is quite fastidious about his property, and he is a nice guy. So he took it upon himself to start repairing the fence. Maybe not a full blown repair as several two by fours have to be replaced along with the fence boards themselves due to the way it was torn open, but at least something to make it look less obvious.
As he is working, the resident moron comes out and tells him to get off of his property. Wow, here is the guy trying to make the place look a bit better, working on the fence that was broken due to my resident moron and he is telling him to get off property that isn’t even his. I’m guessing it was about two minutes later when the neighbor called me, extremely upset. I’m also guessing the guy was drunk again, just to make him even more of a pain.
Right now, my hands are tied as I have to wait for my eviction hearing Thursday. Most probable result is he won’t show up and I have to go through more headaches with bailiffs, changing locks and police. Worst case, he shows up and the hearing officer grants him a Cinderella order so he can stay and try to pay off over the next couple of months.
Since I am whining, I might as well mention my paranoid tenant staying in another property. I collect rent Saturday mornings every week. I have a scheduled two hour window I arrive at properties I pick money up and mosey on to the next place. My paranoid client refuses to hide the money in his room, always has to be out of the property by 9 in the morning (even though he doesn’t have a job as far as I can tell), and has made me make separate trips to collect.
When he wasn’t around Saturday again, I left a note telling him this wasn’t going to work, he had either to leave the money in his room or come up with an arrangement to be there. If that wouldn’t work, it was best he moved on. We had company Saturday and didn’t check messages until Sunday to find out he had left me a message. He had taken my note to the police since it was threatening. I imagine they had to hold back laughter as a tiny little man in a cheap trench coat shows up at a police station telling them his landlord is demanding his rent on time. I deal with freaking morons lately and it seems to be getting worse!!!!!!
Talked to the other tenants yesterday and he apparently called the Better Business Bureau to report me, talked about calling a lawyer and went on and on. Dealing with this crap makes it so hard to get up in the mornings lately. The only positive I can see is it’s going to make a great book someday.
The story of SWAT boy carrys on, and it just keeps getting better, fortunately I am trying to take the positive lessons from this. First I screwed up. Everyone take note, don’t fill out eviction forms when you are frustrated and in a rush. You make mistakes.
It’s embarrassing to mention, but I pulled some doosies on this one, I spelt the tenants name wrong, left out a letter in his name, and didn’t change the date on the form. Unfortunately the tenant noticed this. He had contacted Landlord and Tenant Services to find out his rights (or what responsibilities he could avoid more realistically), and I am not sure if they walked him through the eviction form or he discovered it himself. He contacted me Monday to inform me he was writing a letter of objection against the eviction and if I wanted him out I would have to take him to court. I was pretty upset, but he got me, my error.
Step two, I stopped by the house and picked up the objection letter Tuesday. I had to wake him as he was on the couch with a couple of empty beer cans visible (it was after 12, barely!), so much for the detox sticking. He was a bit off, so I can only assume there were more than two beers involved, he eventually told me the letter was on the table, nope not there, looked around confused and pointed to a side table and then walked over, grabbed it and gave me his hand written letter.
I grabbed it and started to walk away, no sense wasting my time there, I already had my plan in place. This irritated him to no
Little bit angry!
end. He started getting quite upset and asked why I wasn’t going to stay and read it. I told him it wasn’t necessary. Guess I hit the right button.
I quickly read through it and this is where he pointed out the name, the date and the address being wrong (the address was actually correct as I used the titled address, but he doesn’t need to know that). It also said that he wasn’t smoking it was someone else (did I mention ditch responsibility) and that I said it was ok to drink in the house. After reading it I simply said fine and started to walk away.
Once again the mood swing went out of control as he started to get mad and yelling at me about messing this affecting people’s lives. I just kept walking out and he then started to swear at and about me as I continued to leave. I’m a little confused, if I am the worst landlord ever and this is such a horrible place why is he fighting so hard to stay?
Anyway, according to Landlord and Tenant his letter of objection makes my eviction null and void which now means I can just go directly down to the Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service and file for a court hearing for next week. I just finished my paperwork before starting this post. Twenty pages in total and three copies of it are required for filing.
This isn’t my biggest file I have taken in, but definitely interesting. I will keep you posted!
Because SWAT showed up you moron and that counts as the final strike! The full SWAT story is available here, Has Police Tactical Visited Your Rental Property Lately? So by the title, you can guess I had an interesting day Sunday. I had to stop to collect some rent for November 1st and the yahoo who triggered the police tactical event a week ago finally had some money for me. So I stopped in.
I don’t get it, as much as I like to think I am a smart person, these people, and yes, I have now resorted to calling many of my shared accommodation tenants “these people” just don’t think as I do. He brought up the eviction right away and mentioned the date h was supposed to be out was the 4th, but then proceeded to tell me how he had the money for me so he should be able to stay, and then showed me how clean the place was. He also brought up how he had checked Craig’s list and could get a place just like that if he wanted.
He had also obviously put some suck up time and energy into improving the cleanliness of the property. He even cleaned inside the microwave and the floors and made sure to point it out to me! Nice work, so I thanked him and told him he still had to go. Has anyone else ever seen a lead balloon? I became witness to one right then and there!
To say he was unhappy with me might have been an understatement. He complained about how much work it was going to be for him to move again, he told me how he was comfortable there, how he liked the size of the room. Then he complained about having to call his brother and get his brother to help him move as he had a vehicle and it was going to be a hassle for his brother. I just stared at him.
When he finally realized I wasn’t changing my mind and the only thing moving was him, that was when the comments about how I was one of the worst landlords ever. How I was a certain piece of male anatomy for not keeping a clean responsible tenant (I may have neglected to mention this clean responsible tenant only a couple weeks out of detox, who I had carried during this time as he wasn’t working and couldn’t pay, also smelled of booze while talking to me). It deteriorated a bit more from there, so I started to leave.
I almost made it to the door when one last crack about me not helping people and being a p*^%& made me stop and walk partially back in. As I looked at him, I realized it was just a lose lose situation and anything I said or did was only going to elevate things, so I just turned and walked out to the sound of more yelling and a slamming door from his room.
As I was driving around to my other stops that afternoon, I replayed it all back in my head and after first reminding myself about how many people I have helped, how many tenants I have provide great homes for and how many times I had been ripped off by the majority of these tenants, I just became more irritable. Being a landlord really is a thankless job. You try and provide a safe comfortable place, yet you are a money grubbing land baron in their eyes.
Now the current type of tenant I was dealing with could not ever be deemed a fine upstanding citizen in anyone’s eyes, and I have had some incredible guys stay in these properties as well as our regular rentals, but it just wears a person out. The bad people always leave a much more indeligible mark on our memories versus the wonderful people we have dealt with and unfortunately the bad memories leave a far heavier impact than the good ones. The more I thought about this fellow the more I realized he wasn’t taking any responsibility for anything. I was a jerk (or worse) not him, the police over reacted (still doesn’t quite add up) not him, the other fellow made him drink he didn’t do it himself, he didn’t think it would hurt if he smoked in the house on occasion, and the list goes on. What was he responsible for? Making the place clean and wonderful, but none of the bad things that occurred, they were all someone else’s fault.
This seems to be the biggest fault of so many people these days. They just won’t own up to their responsibilities. I understand no one is perfect, I am far from it, but when I screw up I take responsibility, when people depend on me I take responsibility, when I screw up, I take the blame. If you have to go around hiding from responsibility, pushing blame at others and avoiding being a grown up, you will never amount to anything, or if you do, it won’t last. You will be a fleeting success and as you come crashing down, you will come down hard.
During these tougher economic times, I am seeing more and more examples of this, more and more individuals pushing responsibility away and saying it is someone else’ problem. Whether they believe the government should take care of them or the landlord has to carry the cost of supporting them, whatever the case, they just feel it is not their responsibility and pass the buck.
It should be an interesting day Wednesday, since it’s not his fault my tenant is getting evicted, perhaps it won’t be his fault that he trashes my property. However it plays out, I will keep everyone posted!
First off, thanks to everyone who emailed or commented on yesterday’s frustration post. We received plenty of incredibly positive replies and it has helped Karen and I create a much clearer picture of what we are currently doing, what we need to change and what we are hoping to accomplish.
A little more follow up on the aftermath of Tuesday’s events for you. I currently still have evictions in place for the central character from the drama and his “drinking/smoking partner”. I met with the second fellow’s support person, who works out of the CUP’s Outreach program downtown, at noon yesterday who very earnestly requested a second chance for the individual. I declined, citing complete frustration, lack of respect for my property and myself from this individual and just plain weariness of taking other people’s burdens on.
As we were talking, first individual appeared who created the event. He had apparently been released from the hospital early in the morning. His version of the story was he had been talking to one of the distress support lines and when they asked how he felt he said he felt like he should “stick a knife in his throat”. Apparently, this is what caused 30 police, police Tactical, police dogs, a lockdown of a city block and all the drama to take place.
Sometimes it just doesn't add up!
I’m pretty good at math, and this doesn’t add up, so I am probably missing a very important part of the equation here, unfortunately I will probably never have enough information to completely figure it out. That much police activity does not occur with a potential suicide, in fact showing up with assault rifles would probably be rather counteractive if a potential suicide was taking place.
I mentioned in the previous post the individual had previous encounters with the police and it turns out he has spent time in jail. I guess this raises the question, what exactly had he been in jail for and how might that endanger me in future encounters as I am pretty sure my tolerance level for bull has gone out the window.
It’s ironic that I have spent the last several years trying to create safe environments for people to live in and now I have created an environment where theoretically it’s not safe for me to visit. That is probably a bit excessive in reflection, as I am much larger than the other fellow is. It is however a reminder to myself that I’m entirely sure of the mindset and past history of the individuals who I have ended up with recently.
So the lessons I’ve learned and the confirmations from you the readers/posters/emailers out there confirm I need to worry less about others and a bit more about my property, my family and myself. As a side note, did you know if the SWAT team breaks a fence to arrange a proper line of site to cover an entrance way, the city will come fix it for you later? Look at all the thing sI have learned from this!
Wow, what an interesting couple of days I’ve had. Would you like to hear some of it?
It all started early Monday afternoon when I went to drop off a receipt to one of my shared accommodation tenants. Just to catch you up, I rent out shared accommodation properties to working men in Calgary. Fairly simple accommodations, four or five rooms in a house, each with their own lock, fully furnished including linens, cookware etc. Color TV’s with full cable in each room. Perfect for someone between places, just arriving in Calgary for work, or someone who doesn’t have a large amount of cash saved up for a security deposit and rent.
We have simple rules for the places, originally they were everyone had to have a job, there was no smoking in the properties, no drinking, no drugs and no overnight visitors. With the drinking, we don’t mind if the guys have a couple beer, but our goal was to clamp down on the places being party houses which typically happens with these types of properties. Also by having jobs, that meant no one is hanging around the house all day.
Well over the last 9 months with the slowdown, we have relaxed even more and have taken in people on social assistance, people in need of a hand up and some guys just down on their luck. On one hand, it was meant to help us out by filling up some of our vacancies, a means to stem cash flowing out when it should be coming in. On the other hand, it was also a method to help people and organizations needing help.
So, back to Monday, I arrive at the property, head on in and find two non-working tenants sitting there drinking and smoking with a third female I don’t know. Ashtray’s are out, everyone seems to be having fun, at least until I show up. I literally blew up, if you would have seen me you would have turned around and walked away, I was livid. I explained my position, what they could do with their cigarettes, ashtrays and booze and stormed out to my next appointment.
When I arrived back at the office I filled out the evictions for both tenants and then rushed back to sign in two other fellows into two other places and took a few minutes to drop off both evictions. The party was well broken up by now and just the one fellow remained who was quite shocked that I was giving him an eviction. We had a very short conversation and I left.
I had already given the one fellow a second chance and since I don’t play baseball I don’t use a three strike rule, I will give someone the opportunity to correct their behaviour once, then it’s over. So fellow one was done, fellow two who I had the short conversation with, had been a pretty good tenant up until that point. I was not in the mood to talk to either of them again that day, but by 7:00, the “model tenant” had called and left two messages. I had already discussed with Karen I would give him his second chance if he followed the rules over the next week.
So I returned his call, spent ten minutes listening to him whine about how unfair it was (this is the part I don’t understand, it’s fair for these jerks to smoke in my property stink the place up, cause me to pay for new carpets that are burnt, replace burnt sheets, repaint rooms at my time and expense, but it’s not fair for me to kick them out) and finally told him to shut up and listen as I was giving him one more chance. It took a moment for him to understand, and it finally registered as he became very thankful. When I finally got off the phone, I was worn down and put the phone down for the night to charge.
This morning, I grab my phone to check email and found the fellow had called twice more last night. So after the kids off to school I called to find out what was up, hoping for more apologies, recognition of what he had done being wrong, that type of call. Instead, he was telling me I shouldn’t kick out the other guy, and I should let his stay as well. I spent several minutes on the phone explaining the other guy was done, had his chance and was not staying.
It’s when he told me I should be a human being and to help this other guy out that the conversation rapidly fell apart. I have gone above and beyond what almost any other landlord would do to help people out. I looked back and of the last seven people I helped through these agencies, I have had one person who I have not had any issues with and he is currently there. The people I have helped have included six people who I have evicted, have created five different police incidents, two complaints by neighbours, several thousand dollars worth of lost rent, damage to property, a stolen car, homemade knives and weapons, complete disrespect of my properties and me and this meathead is telling me to be a human being. I told him the other guy was going, I wasn’t changing my mind the conversation was over and I was hanging up, which I did.
About an hour later, I get a call with the same prefix as the area this fellow was in, so I ignored it and let it go to voice mail. I fully expected it was him calling back to plead yet again. Two minutes later my wife Karen calls me to tell me the neighbour just called and the police have surrounded the area, have assault rifles out in the back alley and no one on the block is allowed to leave their home. I immediately grab my stuff and start heading out when the police call me.
I had to run back in check my files and provided names and info on the tenants that are there and when I tell them I am heading over, they warn me to stay two or three blocks away. Since I cannot do anything there, I realize I might as well get back to my desk and wait to hear from the police. Over the next couple of hours, I end up talking to the constable twice more and dispatch once more and finally find out that they have everything under control.
The end result is the individual who I had planned on letting stay called the distress center and told them he was going to commit suicide. Potentially because I wasn’t going to let his “buddy” stay. It also turns out this guy had previous issues with the police, so they sent everyone available, including the police tactical. We talked to the neighbour later in the day and she informed us there were at least 30 police there, what a great way to make an impression on the neighbourhood. The individual was taken to the hospital by the police and was being held to sober up and to assess his mental state by various doctors.
This was a huge call for attention for this guy, a huge waste of everyone’s emotions and a big wake up call for me. I’m tired of helping. That’s it. My problem tenants are all the ones I am trying to help, yet they are dragging me down. I’m angry, I’m depressed and I feel beat down because I cannot help people who obviously don’t want help. Or at least don’t want help if they have to work at it.
The worst part is I am lumping in many good people who are really down on their luck and having to shut my door to all of them. What is wrong with people? Why don’t more of them take responsibility for their lives, for their actions and for how they represent themselves? Is it just that easy to let society take responsibility for them, to make everyone help them out as part of social rightfulness? Or is it just easier for them not to care, to coast through life and take what they need as they need it?
Could my constant exposure to this negative life be tearing at my values? Have I managed to become so callous as to build what could only be called disgust, or a disappointment on the soft side, for people not carrying their weight and abusing the system? Specifically my system lately?
Bet that headline caught people’s attention, and no, it wasn’t me heading downtown for a sleep over either. It was one of my tenants, twice in two days matter of fact.
So here is some quick background for you before I start telling you the tale of my latest tenant story. I started dealing with a few organizations with in the last few months that deal with people hoping to transition from places like the drop in centre and various other places along that line. There are a lot of people in the city who just need a hand up to get pointed in the right direction and our shared accommodation properties are an ideal environment for some of them. Unfortunately, only some as was readily apparent this weekend, not everyone!
The young lad who resembles the headline actually immediately got off to a bad start with me when I initially started to sign him in. When I explained the rules about no smoking in the house, no problem, when I explained no drugs in the house, no problem, it was when I mentioned no drinking the wheels started to come off. Now when I tell new guests about the no drinking rule I explain that I really mean it is not a party house, a couple beer after work, no problem, flats of beer lying everywhere, problem.
I didn’t manage to get that far with the young lad before he explained to me that he likes to get drunk as often as possible. In retrospect, the top of my head should have been smarting from the rap on the head that huge red flag should have provided.
Now I had been working with his support worker for a few days to try and set something up for him, so my common sense jumped out the window and my desire to help let me overlook this. I had been warned he needed some guidance and strict rules would help keep him on the right path, so I re-explained my position to him about drinking at the house and believed I had come to a reasonable understanding with him. You know the standard “these are the rules, if you don’t like them, don’t live here”.
The interesting thing about these shared accommodation properties are the mind sets of many of the individuals. As a rule, they almost flat out refuse to tell me when anyone breaks my house rules, unless it directly affects them. That was how I first found out he was a problem when my phone rang at 11:30 at night and then 1:30 in the morning. It appears my young friend was drunk, belligerent and keeping everyone awake.
Normally my phone shuts off at 11:00 and restarts at 7:00 in the morning, but for some reason it didn’t happen that way. My thoughts are if there is anything that big of an emergency they should be calling 911 first and I can pick up the pieces the following morning. So the following morning I headed on down and strangely enough at 10:00 this individual was sound asleep, while the other individual in the house he drank with, I must have just missed. After waking him I calmly (yeah right) explained my position to him and notified him that if anything else occurred and his name was mentioned, he was gone. Common sense mistake #2.
I also discovered via the scuttle butt from the other tenants that he had been in jail for a few days for missing a probation meeting and had only been released a day or two prior. Every day I learned a bit more about him just to keep me on edge. It appears his return to freedom required a mandatory celebratory drunk. Perhaps yet another red flag?
Now after talking to his support worker they informed me that our young fellow was trying to get into another housing program that would have more supervision, stricter rules and most likely onsite workers to control the environment. His upcoming meeting was scheduled for Friday morning at 10:00am and it was important to keep him aware of this(for selfish reasons at this point as it would give him a home and I didn’t have to feel bad about potentially kicking him out on the streets). So I volunteered to leave him a note reminding him or talk to him if I ran into him.
Because the shared accommodation properties have common areas for all the tenants, I don’t have to announce my visits with 24 hour notices as per Landlord and Tenant laws, so I commonly show up and have a quick look around the common areas to make sure everything is under control. It was during this one visit I dropped off a note for him and stuck it between the door and door frame, so he had to see it when he arrived home.
Just to keep better control over the place I made it a point of randomly dropping in quite a few times over the next couple days and noticed my note never moved, which made the other tenants along with myself presume he may have been having another sleepover downtown. So I contacted his worker again and let her know he had disappeared once more, so using her contacts finally after about five days we found out he indeed had ended up in the Remand Centre. We both assumed he would be there for a few days, so I prepared his eviction notice, just so it was all nice and legal and then promptly became swamped with a new property just coming on line.
So Friday rolls around, I still haven’t dropped off the 14 day eviction and the worker calls me to tell me our young project has shown up looking for his end of the month income assistance check. Even more of the story comes out now that this individual is quite aware of how the system works. You get drunk, disorderly or whatever it takes to get held in jail for a while, and then you get out in time to retrieve your government check so you can repeat the drinking cycle.
My plan was to drop off the eviction at the end of Fri day as I was still working on a property and had a deadline to get it ready for August 1st, so end of the day rolls around and I head over to the house. What do I find when I arrive? My other tenant and my young buddy sitting in the living room with young buddy obviously hammered. There are beer cans all over the coffee table and then I notice a pipe and marijuana all over the table, at this point I am mildly annoyed (perhaps mild wasn’t the correct word there) and I tell him he has five minutes to leave. OK, I admit it, that isn’t exactly the way the landlord and tenant bylaws are written, but what he didn’t know at this point really wouldn’t hurt him.
Now normally he is just off a little bit, but when he drinks this fellow can only be described as whacked. He didn’t look very happy with my chat with him or my demands that he be gone in five minutes so I told him I would be back and he needed to be gone. So I promptly went to my vehicle and called the police and explained the situation.
Within about 40 minutes, a car pulled up with a couple of officers and I explained the whole problem to them, including the drugs in plain site on the table. Now due to Landlord and Tenant bylaws, their hands are tied as far as far as helping me remove a tenant who hasn’t broken the law. They even explained how they couldn’t come into the property without proper reason. Unfortunately, over the years I have learned far too much about the Landlord and Tenant rules and explained the common area set up of my property and then tossed in the kicker of how I needed them to come in to ensure my safety. This worked perfectly for them.
Into the abyss we entered! When the fellows had seen the squad car pull up they had been sitting on the front balcony smoking (finally they were following some rules!), and they promptly vanished into the house itself. I assumed they rushed in to hide the drugs and straighten up a bit, but I assumed incorrectly, it looks like my lad had just gone in for more beer. There were the drugs and the pipe just lying on the table.
I re-explained my position to him and by this time, he was a bit more belligerent, so the officers asked to see some id from him. He wasn’t able to produce any, so they asked him to stand up so they could search his pockets and they found some stubs from his monthly government check which they used to identify him and lo and behold discovered he had another warrant of some type out for his arrest. So they were now able to cart him away for what I thought would be several days. By then hopefully new accommodations would be found for him and he would be out of my world.
This brings us to Saturday morning, which is when I collect rents from several of our properties. One of my tenants from the property calls from the neighbours to tell me buddy is back, is threatening him, has been punching holes in walls, breaking screens and causing general havoc. I quickly finished up at the house I was at and headed over to see what was actually taking place. Since I was sure this wasn’t going to go well, I called the police on my way over re-explained everything and they once again were sending a car over to visit.
Are you still with me? I know my stories tend to go on and on, but we are getting to the good stuff!!
So it’s Saturday morning, just after 10:30am, when I show up at the house, and surprise he is already quite drunk. After he left Friday there was still about a dozen beers and a large bottle of Jack Daniels in a bag that were all unopened. When I arrive the bottle is over two thirds empty, so I was sure I would be off to a great conversation with him if I could keep him focused long enough.
As I walked up to the property, I could see the remnants of the spline that holds the screen in place lying on the sidewalk, so I was already “edgy”. Once inside, the other tenant who was threatened showed me the holes in the wall in his room, so I quickly escalated past edgy. I confronted the drunken fellow and politely asked him why he punched my walls, threatened the tenants and broke my screens. Ok, I better confess, I might not have been that polite.
He started to get annoyed and said he was leaving, so I followed him out and kept “talking” to him to stall him until the police arrived. I was also kind of hoping I could get him to try and swing at me which drastically escalates my options as a landlord. Usually I can push someone’s buttons quite well, so I must be losing my touch as he wouldn’t fall for it. Finally out of the blue he says to me “I’m going to buy a guitar!” Then he turns and starts walking down the street. Really how do you counter something like that? I mean when someone has the overwhelming urge to suddenly go buy a guitar you really just need to let them go for it. Especially when you are busy trying to grasp exactly how messed up they truly are!
Just moments after he left the three police vehicles showed up and just like the previous day, all the officers were great. They understood my problem, I understood how they were limited to what they could do and they definitely wanted to help me which I appreciate.
I explained how he just left, and described his clothing for them, the direction he went and his unique haircut (apparently due to the fight he had the other night they had to shave portions of his head to clean up some cuts and abrasions). I’m pretty sure he is the only person in North America with that particular style right now.
So one of the cars went off looking for him (I couldn’t think of any local guitar shops in the area, so I suggested they start by heading towards the pawn shop several blocks away). Sure enough within about ten minutes, they found him and brought him back. After discussing with the officer my options, I was able to complete a 24 hour eviction for the tenant. If you ever have a tenant who threatens you as the landlord or one of the other tenants in your property, you can immediately issue a 24 hour eviction which greatly accelerates the process.
By this time, he had agreed to go to the drop in centre which the officers were prepared to take him to, but to cover my bases I also had to give him his copy of the eviction and explain he had 24 hours to pack and be gone. Even in his drunken state, he was able to understand he could stay for 24 hours. Unfortunately, this part of landlord and tenant bylaws worked for him and against us. So we had to leave him there.
After more conversations with the officer, they suggested I leave; there was nothing else left for me to do, other than get more frustrated. They said they would gladly come by around noon tomorrow if I liked to assist his departure if necessary. They also said they would be sure to make additional drive bys of the property to check that nothing was getting out of control.
I had to walk down the street to collect some more money, so I walked down, finished my collections and as I walked back to my vehicle my drunken friend was perched on top of the banister of the front deck, which is about ten feet off the ground, with beer in hand. Just for fun, I thought I would grab a picture on my cell phone to send to his worker, but before I could take it, buddy fell flat on the ground. It was probably the best part of my day! He wasn’t hurt or anything, when you are that drunk your body is like jelly, but he sure looked confused about his sudden change in elevation.
I did drive off at that point giggling all the way. I had a few more things to take care of in the area and made a few more drive-bys myself, but all appeared quiet. It was around 5:30 that the officer I talked to earlier called me to inform me they found him wondering around the streets still quite intoxicated and I didn’t have to worry about him destroying the house that night. They couldn’t tell me, but reading between the lines, I was pretty sure he was going for another sleep over at the drunk tank.
Its stories like this that Karen and I continue to find ourselves involved in. I guess it’s just a matter of continuing to write about them, sharing some of the humor (and the pain!) with other landlords and friends and then eventually putting it all together as a collection of stories. Anyone interested in getting some pre-orders in?
Loading ...
