Cape Breton landlord speaks out after apartment left in squalor

A Nova Scotia landlord says he may have to raise rent on a unit ruined by the previous tenants.

Dana Reid has been renting out apartments around Sydney, N.S., for about 10 years.

The state one of his units was recently left in was something he felt ought to be captured on a video that has since been shared widely on social media.

“Anyone who’s watching, who is a landlord, will just be nodding their head, being like, they’ve dealt with this before,” Reid said on Thursday.

He said the stove in the rental unit is only two years old but might not be salvageable. Up the stairs to the top room might be where the biggest mess remains.

Reid said two tenants lived here for about two years, but as many as five people were living in the apartment at a given time.

He said the rent was always paid, but he eventually evicted the tenants because of the constant mess.

“A lot of people speculate that they’re on drugs and that,” Reid said of some of the reaction on social media. “No, these people were not - they worked full-time, they both worked 40 hours a week. They just don’t clean anything.”

“We’re seeing more of these types of situations happening,” said Kevin Russell, executive director of Rental Housing Providers of Nova Scotia. “It’s a concern for our industry.”

Russell isn’t quite sure why that’s the case. As for any recourse, he said landlords can file a claim for damages under the Residential Tenancies Act but that it is a lengthy process that often is not worth the trouble.

“To be quite frank, it’s very rare that you would recoup your losses from those situations because the fact is that most people that are causing the problem can’t afford to pay it back,” Russell said.

He added there are best practices for screening tenants but that they offer no guarantees.

Back at the apartment, Reid figures it will cost him at least a couple of thousand dollars to get the unit ready to rent again.

He’s not interested in the hassle of filing a claim against his evicted tenants but wants people to know what landlords sometimes deal with.

“I see a lot of people online, they complain about landlords,” Reid said. “‘Oh, my landlord doesn’t do this, doesn’t do that. They’re charging too much.’ Well, if people are paying more for their apartment, it’s because this is the stuff that goes on.”

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