Posts Tagged ‘Landlord and Tenant Board’

The Toronto Star, The OLA, and The Bedbug Issue

Monday, September 20th, 2010


Bedbug bill would force inspections on landlords

Published On Thu Sep 16 2010
Rob Ferguson Queen’s Park Bureau

New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo is pushing for a law forcing landlords to be licensed and their premises inspected for bedbugs, saying Ontario is “doing nothing” to stop the growing scourge of pests.

“The landlord simply doesn’t get their license renewed if they don’t have a bug-free unit,” the MPP for Parkdale-High Park said Thursday in proposing a private member’s bill.

“It protects good landlords and calls bad landlords to account.”

Landlords would be charged a small fee for each inspection, making the initiative self-funding, DiNovo said.

Her effort follows another bedbug bill by Liberal MPP Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence) in June that would require landlords to present prospective tenants with a “bedbug information report” before a lease is signed.

DiNovo’s idea got a cool reception from Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Rick Bartolucci in the Legislature, who said he prefers Colle’s plan.

“It is an initiative that we should pay very, very close attention to and I look forward to seeing that private member’s bill work its way through the system.”

Private members’ bills rarely become law.

A group representing landlords who own five units or less—often in the same building where they live themselves—accused DiNovo of “political opportunism” for trying to lump bedbugs in with the larger issue of landlord licensing.

“Let’s focus on the bedbugs first,” said Stuart Henderson of the Ontario Landlords’ Association, which encourages its members to inspect and thoroughly clean units when tenants leave.

Landlords are “heavily regulated” as is and are required to treat any infestations reported, said Mike Chopowick of the Federation of Rental Housing Providers of Ontario.

But DiNovo said some landlords fight clean-up orders. She insisted Colle’s bill only requires disclosure of bedbugs and “simply doesn’t cut it.”

Bedbugs, which can live for up to 18 months without eating, are tiny and resilient. They reside in the smallest of spaces such as electrical outlets and vents. Their eggs can even withstand vacuuming.

So getting rid of the pests requires careful steaming and thorough vacuuming of carpets and broadloom, sealing of cracks, and washing of clothes and linens.

Toronto’s Public Health department receives thousands of calls for help each year. The department inspects thousands of apartments and holds dozens of seminars to help tenants.

Calling the OLA HELP-LINE

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Please note there is one time fee of $19.99 for our Help-Line service. Please ensure the payment is made prior to your phone call. Thank you.

Lease Help

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

What are the most important things to make sure I put in my lease to protect myself?

• Full legal names of all tenants

• Term of the lease (month by month, yearly, etc)
• Amount of the monthly rent and what that includes/excludes
• When the rent is due
• Appliances and/or Furnishings Included
• Address for Service for the Landlord
• Special Clauses About Everything Else

The Bentley-driving tenant from hell

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

By MICHELE MANDEL, Toronto Sun

She’s b-a-a-a-a-ck.

The Bentley-driving, condo-trashing tenant from hell who likes to claim she’s a Persian princess is back before the Landlord and Tenant Board for the umpteenth time.

Call her Mojgan Amir-Davani — or by her other six known monikers: Mozhe Aamere, Mozhe (Mozhgan) Avanni, Mozhe Amerjhajar, Mozhe Sheena Mere, Mozhgan Amere Ghajaar or Amiri Mojgan.

Whatever her alias, her modus operandi is the same: She’s terrorized at least four high-end condo owners in North York, convincing them she’s a successful broadcasting executive only to turn into a destructive squatter who expertly plays the system for months of free rent before she’s finally turfed out and moves on to her next victim.

We first told her tale here in January, of frustrated landlord Jane Randall who rented her investment property to the dark haired beauty only to be stiffed with $12,000 in unpaid rent and thousands more in damage.

Claiming to be suffering from cancer and refusing to move, her dog’s feces spilling off her balcony, the carpets stained with blood and urine, Amir-Davani was brilliantly manipulative.

When Randall repeatedly turned to the tenancy board for help, she was told to wait. And wait some more.

Six months later, she finally left only to move down the street into a Hollywood Ave. condo owned by another small landlord who’s now going through the same horror story.

We’ll call him Frank because he’s too embarrassed to use his real name. Renting out his two-bedroom luxury unit for the first time, the 35-year-old scientist was counting on the $1,920 monthly rent to help pay off his student loans and mortgage.

He figured his realtor had found him the ideal tenant when she arrived in a chauffeur-driven Bentley to sign the deal in February.

She said she was newly arrived from California and provided a reference no one seems to have checked.

Within a few months, his kitchen was damaged by fire, tenants below were complaining about feces dripping from her balcony and her rent cheques began to bounce as hard as a rubber ball.

Amir-Davani didn’t respond to a request for comment.

During a recent inspection, a contractor told Frank it will cost $9,800 to repair the damage so far. He’s also out $2,000 in legal fees and at least $6,000 in arrears.

“It’s hard to sleep some nights,” Frank admits. “The financial cost is one thing. But then there’s the emotional thing: Is she ever going to be out?”

He’s turned to Harry Fine, president of Landlord Solutions and the paralegal who helped evict Amir-Davani from a Harrison Garden condo in 2007.

“I see it every week and my heart goes out to them,” says Fine of naive landlords scammed by professional squatters. “They don’t check references. They don’t do credit checks.”

She finally agreed to move by Aug. 7 as long as Frank waived her back rent and damages. Not surprisingly, the date came and went, with her still comfortably ensconced in his ruined condo.

What she didn’t know is that Fine arranged for her to be confronted by Frank, Randall, and her 2007 landlord when she arrived at her eviction hearing Aug. 9.

“Like a husband walking into a room to be faced by his three ex-wives who had been exchanging stories, the tenant walked into the hearing room Monday morning to find not one but three of her victims,” Fine recalls. “She was furious.”

A landlord and tenant adjudicator gave her until Aug. 31 to leave. But Frank’s hardly home free: As soon as Amir-Davani files an appeal — and she’s vowed to do so — he’ll be back waiting for yet another hearing and yet another eviction date.

“The legal system just takes forever and is so weighted to the side of tenants,” he complains.

Which makes even less sense when this notorious tenant has been the subject of so many eviction hearings.

“She’s been in the exact same hearing room and still it goes on? How does someone get away with that?” he sighs.

“She’s the tenant from hell and beyond.”

http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/michele_mandel/2010/08/20/15092061.html

A Cautionary Tale For Landlords in Ontario

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

The devastation in this video should have been avoided. The tenants responsible for this destruction have done this before. Too many times. Their victims: small, residential landlords who were vulnerable, unsuspecting and could ill afford what would happen to their investment properties.

The victims: Tyler and Lisa Sage, Amatal Wadood, Gary and Nancy Woodley, Judin and Anne Xavier, Lois Debeaucamp. There are more.

The story is the same for each of them. The tenants pose as a responsible and financially responsible couple, seeking a nice home in a lovely neighbourhood. They express a sincere desire to raise their little girl in a safe area, and are planning to purchase their own home one day soon. Landlords love their story, they appear to be excellent prospective tenants.

Soon after they move in, the games begin. Bounced cheques, emails full of excuses and lies. The moment the landlords begin to stand up to them, the truth is realized. They lied from the beginning. They know the system. They threaten, and hold property hostage while the system governing evictions grinds along. All the while, the conditions inside and outside the homes deteriorates. When it’s over, the rent arrears are significant, the damage is unbelievable. Instead of being ashamed or remorseful, however, they file applications against their landlords for harassment, and file Claims in the higher courts for the heaps of belongings they leave behind.

These tenants do not face any exposure or consequence before the Landlord and Tenant Board, and they are empowered to do it over and over and over again. It’s time to ask WHY.