The pits and peaches of communal living in Toronto
On a rainy Friday, on May 5th, I was to show up to the Landlord and Tenancy Board tribunal court located near Yonge and St. Clair with three copies of my disclosure documents prepared to defend the landlord (a.k.a. my mother).
The easy to find court building location is attached to a mall complex with a pretty little bike rack and flowers at the front.
A short elevator to the second floor brought me to a somewhat gloomy yet spacious interior with security guards at the front desk and a hallway splitting up into two. There were about five courtrooms in total, as well as an administrative office. Prior to entering a courtroom, attendees lined up to check in with security.
But lets rewind and start with how I got into this situation in the first place.
When I initially got the idea to rent our two storey, fully detached, three bedroom, with basement, family home by room – I had no clue what I was getting myself into.
The last thing I imagined was that two years later I would be going to court on behalf of my mother, because a tenant – let’s call him Mr Goo – submitted an application against her with the local tribunal court for missing a one-month rent payment before moving out.
For reasons still unclear, he expected the tribunal to terminate his tenancy with a one-month notice instead of the standard two. After the landlord told him what he was doing was illegal, he stopped paying rent and applied to the tenancy board with the request to terminate.
Having worked as a law journalist I was familiar with how the court system operated and what was expected of me, so I was actually – almost – looking forward to experiencing it for myself, instead of just writing about it.
I had submitted all the necessary paperwork three weeks prior, prepared the argument, arrived early on the date of the hearing and then sat patiently waiting for my turn to speak.
All those scheduled to be heard that day had to show up prior to 9:30 A.M. to sign in and be ready to spend the day in court. The large room had at least ten rows of seats on each side with an aisle leading to the front of the room where the action took place. A judge sat on a raised platform with two tables stationed on each side and marked for each party, so there would be no confusion.
The judge, or Madame Chair as she is called in tribunal courts, presides over all the proceedings and the cases are called in order of difficulty. Easy cases like those with only one party present, and cases with legal representation get called first. The hardest cases get pushed to the end and may be tried before 5 p.m. or get postponed to the following day.
We didn’t have to wait long.
Madame Chair first underlined to Mr Goo that he had applied to sublet and assign the unit. He had to choose one, she explained.
To sublet a unit indicates that the tenant currently occupying it plans to come back in due time, to continue to occupy it. To assign a unit means that the tenant does not plan to come back and the assignee is to take over the unit for the remainder of the time of the lease or otherwise.
A five-minute back and forth conversation followed in which the chair quickly got to the root of the issue.
Instead of giving the standard two months or 60 days notice as outlined by the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act the tenant gave a one-month notice, citing that he was denied permission to assign his unit. Mr Goo didn’t have anything to back the claim up, but that didn’t stop him from making his argument.
The chair – citing email correspondence disclosed – explained her reasoning several times leading Mr Goo to repeatedly make a circular argument for several minutes, during which I stifled a giggle. It was a relief to see that I was not the only one frustrated by the seeming lack of common sense.
Finally, with noticeable annoyance at having to repeat herself without a glimmer of understanding in return, Madame chair said “I’ve heard everything I need to hear, your application is dismissed, you’ll see the reasons, you can request a review if you disagree with them.” Then she turned to me and said, “I don’t need to hear from you.”
I promptly said, “Thank you,” to which she responded with a cheerful “You’re welcome.” I was relieved that it was over so quickly.
I knew that my next step would be to file a claim in the Small Claims court to get the money owed to my mother. I decided to wait for the written decision that was to be mailed the following week. I hoped that Mr Goo would have some sense and pay what he owed in the meantime.
He didn’t.
It was only after I sent a text message letting him know that all the documents were ready to be filed with Small Claims, that he said he might pay, but he said, only after he consulted with the Landlord and Tenancy Board.
Did he really think the court would reverse its decision at this point?
I spent a long time analysing my actions and finding the red flags I had clearly missed that led up to such an outcome.
Mr Goo had a few bad habits. Doing laundry adjacent to a bedroom at 4 A.M., leaving stacks of dirty dishes and garbage for weeks, and taking two hour showers twice a day in a shared bathroom were just a few of them. Everyone tried to adjust because living together is always a compromise and we all have bad habits after all.
The biggest mistake on my part however, was not verifying the information he gave on his unit application. Turns out the job and salary listed were inaccurate. And although I don’t think Mr Goo had trouble paying due to a lack of funds, a lie on an official application was a major red flag.
But the biggest lesson was that of understanding. Everyone is different and the vastness of those differences can only be felt when you live with people.
I learned about the importance of verifying information, instead of trusting people at their word from Mr Goo. And that, what may seem like common sense to me may not be to others, and vice versa.
I learned about boundaries from Mr Cho. He would not, under any circumstances come into another person’s room without explicit permission, even to turn off an alarm that had blared for half an hour in the middle of the night.
If someone had forgotten their laundry in the machine he would wait (sometimes over a day) for them to pick it up so he could do his own.
I learned about the perception of fairness from how everyone wanted to divide the fridge and cupboard space in the kitchen. Almost without fail, each person wanted the best shelf (biggest shelves and those at arm’s level) and somehow thought it was fair that they should get it.
While others, like Mr Cho, never complained about having the lower shelf. To me that small act spoke of great character. It’s funny how much you can tell about a person from something so seemingly insignificant.
I learned about compromise over and over whenever I tried to find a middle ground between my interests, the landlord’s, and the tenants’. Things like deciding on a temperature that is comfortable for everyone and doesn’t run up the electricity bills on an all-inclusive accommodation, or when it was OK to have guests over and when to keep it down was always a balancing act.
For one particular month in the summer while everyone was away on vacation and Mr Goo was left in charge, our electricity bill totalled close to $500 because someone put the air conditioner on blast. Boy, I heard it from my mom then. Mr Goo, of course, denied any wrongdoing.
I learned about the importance of communicating correctly from everyone. We all have a unique perception of the world and if there was a conflict to resolve, I discovered I first needed to find that common language. Some people understood logical reasoning; others needed that emotional connection, while some just needed to experience it to get it.
I also got a lot of insight of how I am perceived and that I had the tendency to be too passive or too assertive at times. It’s important to pick your battles and that sometimes by being too involved you are taking on unnecessary responsibility. People will find a common ground by themselves and issues should only be resolved, as they occur, not before and not after.
For such a beautiful and well-off city – with insanely high real estate market and rental unit prices – Toronto seems to harbour a lot of lonely people, which made me think that renting out rooms not only made great financial sense, but I would get to live with my best friends, before we all move on to living with a partner.
And while there are still little tiffs here and there, I can finally say I am lucky to have found housemates who are actually considerate and kind.
By:
✘
𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮,
𝓐𝓙☙
