This woman is the only person I can think of who simultaneously earned my admiration and disappointment.My brief and unfortunate acquatainceship with her took place around five years back when she came to rent an apartment from me in a building I owned in Verdun.
I furnished those units from top to bottom: futon, table, cable TV, heat, stove, fridge and even wireless internet.
I spent considerable time and effort dolling up this particular apartment with a $90 table from Ikea and slick Mabe fridge from a warehouse sale on Dickson.
This woman showed up asking for an apartment standing next to a sad-looking young boy of 12 or 13.
She said she worked at the Douglas Hospital and showed me some sort of work pass. She said she needed an apartment fast because her old apartment was hit by fire and she needed something right away because she worked a lot and had nowhere else to go with her son.
I took pity on her and told her that under the emergency circumstances I'd put her up for a day or two while I evaluated her application. She gave me a few bucks, like $40 or so, and I gave her a receipt.I learned the next morning that the boy was not part of the plan at all. I don't even think he was even her son.
Nor did she work at the Douglas Hospital. That very night she was seen offering services to other tenants in exchange for cash or other stuff, as several other tenants complained.
I still have no idea how she recruited that boy for her elaborate ruse, but she certainly knew how to snow a landlord.
So I told her in the morning that she could not stay in the unit because she had misrepresented herself on her application. Lying on an apartment application is legal grounds for terminating a lease.
But she considered the scrap of paper I had given her to be equivalent of a lease and called the police, and they came and sided with her, told me I had no choice but to acecpt her as a tenant and eventually take her to the rental board and so forth.
However that scrap of paper said nothing of any obligations to furnish the apartment so I went in with a dolly and pulled every last bit of everything I owned out of the unit.
About five of Verdun's finest stormed into my office and told me to put the items back in.
I refused. The commander of the Verdun police station said that he would arrest me for mischief if I failed to comply with his order.
I put my hands out and told him, "Go ahead and arrest me then."
He did not.
Another female cop later asked me nicely to at least put the fridge back in, so I complied but the woman had no other furniture. After about another day I offered her $150 to sign another paper renouncing all her rights to stay there.
She signed and took off.
P.S. I later rented that unit to a taxi driver named Michel Pare, (glasses, moustache, late 50s, disabled in one hand). He ended up owing me over $2,000 in rent, if anybody can help me find him and recover that cash, I'd greatly appreciate it.
8 comments:
Just another example of those greedy landlords making money hand over fist by screwing over poor working people.
When I was involved in property management in Florida I quickly learned to harden myself against any and all hardluck stories. It was not at all uncommon for a potential renter to break character when they saw you were not buying the story.
We need a website to start compiling a database of people like this.
Whenever someone comes to me saying that they need the place right away I always insist the application needs to be processed first. No exceptions no compassion. Not in the land of the regie du logement.
Being a landlord does not affirm one's faith in humanity.
My Dad owned 7 houses in the Laurentians in the 80s, and most of them served as rotating doors for deadbeats. They invariably would fall 5-6 months behind in their rent, and then disppear into the night, leaving cigarette burns on countertops, cat pee everyewhere, and holes in walls. More than half the tenants we saw over the course of 10 years fit this M.O.. It was shocking how many of them would leave logs in the toilet BTW. Animals.
The media love to expose slumlords, but they are few and far between IMO; there are more irresponsible tenants per capita IMO.
Onkel Charlie.
Can't you just ask a police detective to find the guy so you can send him a bill with legal inentions spelled out if he does not pay? If not the police there are other devious ways...
The bad tenant vs good or bad landlord is due to the ratio. Simple math. There are a lot more tenants renting than landlords who own buildings...plus turnover over of tenants. Similarly more cars on the road usually records higher amounts of accidents. But there are idiot tenants with no respect of course, but as the saying goes; don't buy the car if you can't afford the gas and problems that come with car ownership. Same goes for being a landlord imo. It comes with the territory unfortunately. Robert
that's really too bad. The woman was obviously a con artist. Remember that creepy guy who moved into that woman's home adn started squatting there and she couldn't get rid of him? the agreement to renovate was considered valid and he kept insisting she was letting him stay there.
I've evicted quite a few tenants, you know you have a problem the day they move in when they show up in a taxi with all their belongings in garbage bags.
Shite, that sucks. I had a similar situation back in Calgary, family showed up looking like andgels and playing the good christian card. months of unpaid rent later, we found out they were crackheads living with 4 rottweilers and like a dozen cats. They had a nice moving away party too, place looked like a drackden. I wouldnt even let dogs live in such conditions but it comes with the territory....
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