It’s that time of the year where everyone is looking for a place to rent. Searching for off-campus housing is a source of headache for many students. But what students shouldn’t have to worry about is invasions of their privacy.
As of now, my landlord could text me saying he has a viewing for the house within the next hour and he’d be allowed to enter the property. Why? According to Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act, once tenants have given notice to terminate their tenancy, landlords are allowed to show prospective tenants the property so long as they make a “reasonable effort to inform the current tenants of their intentions to do so”.
The ambiguity of “reasonable effort” allows landlords to barely give any notice that they will enter the property. It even states in Section 26 that this “reasonable effort” does not have to be within 24 hours’ notice. Though this is technically legal, it serves as a major inconvenience to tenants who cannot be expected to schedule their day around frequent and inconsistent house showings.
Beyond a mere inconvenience, allowing landlords to enter student-rented property essentially whenever they wish to do so can be seen as a threat to student safety. Without adequate notice, students may have not have time to secure their valuables or ensure that they are not in compromising positions.
Students are in especially vulnerable positions, many of whom are not well-versed in their rights and may even be minors.
Although it may very well be in the best interest of students to allow their landlord to show the property to prospective tenants — as the sooner the new lease is signed, the sooner the invasions of privacy can stop — it does not excuse the blatant disrespect that students have to endure when their landlords appear at odd hours of the day with little notice.
The only requirement of landlords when showing the property to prospective tenants, besides “reasonable effort to inform”, is that they must enter between the times of 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. This should barely be considered a requirement as that timeframe basically cover the entirety of waking hours.
Realistically, appointments for house showings are made well in advance of 24 hours. As such, landlords should be mandated to inform tenants at least 24 hours in advance prior to entering the property, as they are required to in almost any other situation.
In fact, as it stands, landlords can only enter the property without giving 24-hour notice in cases of emergency, under the tenant’s consent, where the tenancy agreement allows for the landlord to enter the property within specified times to clean or during property showings.
While the other situations make sense, as with the exception of an emergency, they require the tenant’s consent, there is no reason to not give tenant’s 24-hour notice before property showings.
Beyond such a requirement being in the best interests for the tenants, giving adequate notice can benefit the landlord as it gives the tenants time to clean the property and make it look presentable.
The government should seriously consider revisiting their tenancies act in order to make these changes. This not only affects students, but tenants across Ontario.
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Since May 1, a group of 100 tenants from Stoney Creek towers in Hamilton’s east end have been protesting proposed rent increases and uncompleted repairs in their apartment complex.
Stoney Creek towers is a four building, 618-unit complex owned by InterRent Real Estate Investment Trust and managed by CLV group.
The rent strike demonstrates ongoing issues with housing in Hamilton and across Ontario.
A 2018 report from the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario found that rent is unaffordable for nearly half of all Ontario tenants.
Hamilton has experienced significant rent increases in recent years. The average cost of rent in Hamilton has increased at double the rate of inflation since 2012.
Rent increases come as a result of both rising house prices and decreasing rental vacancy rates, according to a 2017 report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. As a result of increased demand, apartments are more expensive and harder to find.
“Because of the real estate situation, rent is going up everywhere, people from Toronto and Mississauga are choosing to move here,” said Syed, a tenant at Stoney Creek Towers.
Despite higher rent, living conditions often remain the same. Many low to medium income renters across Hamilton experience substandard living conditions.
According to a study of low to medium renters across Hamilton conducted by Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, 43 per cent of tenants across Hamilton reported a lack of heating in the winter.
Unresponsive landlords are also common across Hamilton. Fifty-nine per cent of tenants surveyed by ACORN reported having problems getting their landlords to conduct repairs.
According to Sarah Wahab, a volunteer with the Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network, leaving units in disrepair is an intentional strategy to push current tenants out so that the landlord can increase rent for new tenants.
The Ontario rent increase guideline restricts the amount that rent can be increased on occupied units each year. However, there is no rent control on empty units.
“The landlord will neglect repairs in order to push the tenant out of the unit so that they can raise the rent for the next tenant that comes in,” said Wahab.
Tenants living in Stoney Creek towers say that long-standing repairs in their units are often left uncompleted.
The Stoney Creek Towers website states that, “24-hour professional maintenance staff are just a phone call away”. However Rita*, a resident at Stoney Creek Towers, found the property management to be difficult to access and unresponsive to requests.
When Rita experienced structural problems in her unit, she had to call multiple times over the course of a week before anybody came. After three or four visits over the course of a month, it was finally determined that there was an underlying problem.
Syed says that his apartment building has an ongoing bedbug problem. He also identified issues with plumbing, lighting and mold in the building.
According to Syed, rent for new tenants is often double what current tenants pay.
CLV group makes repairs to units before renting them out to new tenants. However, Syed says that these repairs are minor. Flooring and baseboards are replaced, and the apartment gets a new set of paint. However, the underlying structural issues remain.
The Ontario rent increase guideline protects tenants from sharp rent increases. The guideline limits the amount that a landlord can increase tenants’ rent in a year. In 2018 the maximum rent increase was 1.8 per cent.
In order to increase the rent on occupied units beyond the 1.8 per cent limit, landlords can apply to the Landlord Tenant Board for a rent increase above the guideline.
If a landlord can demonstrate that significant repair, renovation or replacement has been undertaken in the building, they are eligible for an Above Guideline Increase, which allows rent to be increased beyond the yearly limit.
CLV has applied to the Hamilton landlord tenant board to be approved for a rent hike of 9.6 per cent over the next two years.
According to Roseanne MacDonald-Holtman, community relations manager for CLV, investments have been made to improve heating, air exhaust and plumping, among other repairs.
However, tenants at Stoney Creek towers say the repairs have been primarily cosmetic and have not adequately addressed underlying structural issues.
“CLV is doing superficial work that's completely cosmetic, just to attract newer tenants,” said Syed. “Painting the lobby, putting in a fake fireplace that's completely digital, it doesn't even give off heat, it gets you to think are they really thinking about the tenants?”
Furthermore, if approved, the AGI increase would make rent unaffordable for many of the current residents at Stoney Creek towers.
According to Wahab, the Stoney Creek towers buildings are home to a lot of immigrants, poor people and people with disabilities.
“The issue is that this issue in Hamilton, the demographic cannot afford this price rate,” said Syed.
To demand that CLV drops the AGI and does repairs in all the units, tenants in the Stoney Creek towers began a rent strike.
According to Wahab, a rent strike involves withholding rent. Tenants set their rent aside with the understanding that they will pay it back once the landlord agrees to the demands.
By engaging in the rent strike, tenants aim not only to appeal to their landlord and property manager, but also to the general public.
“Everybody should know what is going on in the apartment,” said Rita. “People will not know what is going on until people open their mouths.”
Tenants, supported by HTSN, have been engaging in campaigns and rallies to engage their landlord and property management company over the course of the campaign.
Rent strikes have been a protesting tactic since the early 1800s. One of the largest rent strikes occurred in New York city in 1907, and led to the establishment of rent control.
More recently, tenants in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood engaged in a three month long rent strike to protest a proposed AGI increase and unfilled work orders in their buildings. Their efforts paid off when the landlord withdrew their AGI application in August 2017.
So far in Stoney Creek, neither CLV nor REIT has agreed to meet with the tenants to negotiate. Instead, Wahab says that they are engaging in a “campaign of harassment”.
On Sept. 12, CLV staff posted letters to tenants’ doors stating that loitering was not permitted in the lobby, stairwells, or common areas. Soon afterwards, CLV group erected walls in the lobbies of two Stoney Creek buildings that block access to meeting spaces. According to the HTSN blog, this is meant to prevent tenants from holding meetings in their building lobbies.
According to MacDonald-Holtman on behalf of CLV, the walls were part of a lobby renovation.
“When complete, residents will benefit from upgraded facilities and services,” stated MacDonald-Holtman in an email.
On Oct. 9, rent strikers received eviction notices. According to Wahab, this is a strategy to scare people into not going on rent strike.
Tenants are supported by lawyers from the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic and have raised money to cover the cost of potential filing fees. Over the course of the campaign, nobody on rent strike has been evicted.
The Landlord Tenant Board will decide whether or not to approve the AGI in a meeting Nov. 1-2. For the tenants in Stoney Creek Towers, the issues go beyond just money.
Tenants will continue to organize, regardless of the outcome.
“We're a part of this community,” said Syed. “We've been part of this community, and we're trying to protect this community and the people coming into it.”
* Names have been changed
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By Daniella Mikanovsky
A string of prowling incidents and break-ins stretching from Aug. 2018 to Sept. 11 continues to rock Westdale. In the wake of these events, students and organizations on campus have been stepping up their advocacy for landlord accountability in the community.
The first incident occurred on Aug. 3, when an intruder broke into the second story window of McMaster Integrated Science student Connor MacLean’s home. After the incident, MacLean and his roommates called their landlords.
“We felt unsafe in that house, so the landlords agreed to put in motion lights. A month later, there was still nothing. We ended up buying our own motion lights, our own security camera, and we installed it ourselves,” MacLean explained. “Safety should not be the student’s responsibility alone. The landlords need to be the first people looking out for that.”
Shemar Hackett, associate vice president of municipal affairs on for the McMaster Students Union, is planning to tackle the issue of unaccountable landlords. The committee he leads is focused on improving off-campus life for students, including housing safety.
One initiative the committee hopes to implement is the Landlord Licencing System, a city-run program that would fund annual housing inspections and certify that any tenant complaints are taken seriously. This system would encourage landlord responsibility, with the goal being for students to have safety features in their homes, including functioning locks on all windows and doors.
An additional initiative that the committee has been undertaking is a Landlord Rating System, which will exist as an online forum for students to rate and report their housing units. Similar to the website Rate My Professor, this website could incentivize landlords to take responsibility when maintaining their houses.
“Once the website gains traction and students begin to report their experiences, irresponsible landlords will begin to see a decline in students seeking their properties. In return, students should see safer living conditions as landlords are now motivated to upkeep their rental units, which increases the quality of living for students and ensures their safety,” said Hackett.
With a host website confirmed, Hackett expects to have the program available for student use in the new year.
There are also programs on campus available for students who feel a lack of security. For instance, a skill students may want to acquire is self-defense. McMaster Athletics and Recreation is offering two 10-week classes for “Krav Maga Self-Defense” this fall.
It is worth noting that “Women’s Self-Defense” has not been scheduled this term. The Athletics and Recreation department is facing difficulty with locating a space for this class due to the renovations occuring in the David Braley Athletic Centre. Although classes may return in the winter term, in light of the Westdale break-ins, the lack of classes may be a significant issue.
For female students who are looking for a women’s-only class, the Equity and Inclusion Office may offer it. Pilar Michaud, director of human rights and dispute resolution at the EIO, explains that in the past, the EIO ran a women’s self-defense workshop.
Michaud also points to several other services available to students, including Meagan Ross, McMaster’s sexual violence response coordinator, the MSU’s Women and Gender Equity Network and Good2Talk, a free and confidential 24/7 helpline that offers professional support for university students in Ontario.
Just a friendly reminder that Good2Talk is a 24/7 Confidential Helpline for post-secondary students. Call 1-866-925-5454 or visit https://t.co/TERu6Z9JUe #MentalHealthMatters
— OUSA (@OUSAhome) February 1, 2018
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A little over three years ago, I excitedly moved into my student house. I predicted it would soon become the backdrop of my soon-to-be reality TV-worthy student life, but instead I was welcomed into my new home with a slew of landlord upsets. With everything from bathroom leaks, to broken decks, to a mysterious older man who used to enter our home at night to fix the plumbing (yes, this was as terrifying as it sounds), at times my student house was more of a problem than a personal oasis.
At the time, I didn’t realize that all of these issues were at the fault of my landlord, since he often asserted his authority in a way that made myself and my housemates feel responsible.
We are definitely not the only students to be in a situation like this. Tenants of Westdale and Ainsliewood homes have often fallen victim to landlord traps that place them in uncomfortable and unlawful positions. In an effort to combat this problem, the MSU’s Student Community Support Network has launched the #MacLivesHere campaign, a Twitter and recently MUSC-centric campaign that will help students become better acquainted with leasing homes and give them an opportunity to share their grievances.
The #MacLivesHere campaign is, in theory, a great idea. So many students get into signing leases without knowing all their rights, and this has led to complications in the past where students end up getting the short end of a deal that is supposed to be in their favour.
The only unfortunate part of the campaign is that it is run by a somewhat overshadowed MSU service, the SCSN.
The MSU is a big organization. It is comprised of both large and small services, with some getting more attention than others. This structure is something expected, but it also begs the question, how necessary are all of our services, and can our money be better used serving groups with the power to make campaigns noticed and accessible?
The SCSN is a service that is meant to help students build positive relationships with the Hamilton community. Unfortunately, even though their aim is noble, some of their efforts and campaigns often get overlooked when larger groups take center stage. It could be a valuable and well-used service for students, but when larger promotions sidestep its actions, the group just appears to be another accessory of the MSU that helps keen students piggyback on a service to work their way towards a future full-time job with the Union.
As a person who is more informed about campus events and services than most, I still don’t know all that much about the SCSN. It is one of multiple MSU services that passes just enough under the radar that very few seem to be checking up on them — this is a disservice both to them and the student body.
Perhaps its time to take a good look at our services and decide which ones are worth our time, and figure out how we can better use our resources to make those shine. It would be great to see more students exposed to the Mac Lives Here campaign, but as far as many students are concerned, SCSN hasn’t even signed a lease.
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