At one time, Vancouver was a groovy place where you could find all sorts of shared "lifestyles." We moved in and out of each others' spacious homes and apartments, shared meals and just as casually said goodbye when our life situations changed. It was a great way to make friends and save money. In many ways, Vancouver was a cauldron for artists of all stripes to brew our fledgling careers. Heck, I put myself through music college mainly as a busker, with a bit of horse grooming and exercising on the side---at minimum wage. While living in a gorgeous Dunbar heritage home.
Twelve years later, the Vancouver I knew and loved is no longer groovy. It's gotten mean as a sunburned snake. Quality of life for the working and artsy classes is gone. We're talking grim survival in a city that overvalues itself. We're competing for real estate, much of it bought by drug dealers who started their investments in the 70's.
If you're unfamiliar with the Vancouver rental market, check out these Craigslist postings. Prices do not include heat, Internet, cable, phone and usually not parking. Some denizens have invented a number called "a takeover fee." This is a big fat surcharge. Sometimes it's a way to force you to buy their second hand furniture, sometimes it's their way of compensating themselves for having to dirty their fingers answering your email.And I'll tell you a dirty little secret: Vancouver's "homelessness problem" is not all about addiction and mental illness. Scores of working poor are being forced into homelessness. Tell me, if you had a $10-12 per hour job, or God forbid, lost it, could you afford these prices plus a security deposit and moving costs? How many people with low wages can cough up a minimum of $2000 on the spot? What happens if you have even a week off work with an injury, unpaid? Bingo, you're homeless.
The "homeless count" they conduct here is not at all representative. Many decline to participate, and the thousands of people sharing bachelor apartments and even beds with strangers in order to avoid the street, go uncounted.
During four months searching for a home, I spoke to 1500 landlords/landladies. Some, I visited. These entrepreneurial souls:
-Provided no heat at all. Said "heat from the downstairs would rise" into the illegal attic suite;
-Constructed barn-like stalls for tenants in the stinky, unfinished cellars of their monster homes and crammed tenants in like refugees on ships. No living room, no phone. Kitchen was half the windowless, airless laundry room, shared by four or five sullen people at $450-500 apiece. “You can take turns sharing,” the landladies/landlords chirped. I found about two hundred of these situations. From West side to East side to South Vancouver ;
-Thought tenants would be fine using the phone in the landlord's bedroom;
-Thought a tenant would be fine sharing the landlord's bedroom. I see you rolling your eyes. Yes, sexual arrangements have existed since the dawn of time. But it wasn't sexual. The guy just had no concept of privacy. He didn't want my body, he just wanted to be "close" to a stranger. That's the creepy part. He was worse than the flaky old bachelor who kept picking at his thighs while interviewing me;
-Said central heating was too expensive, and instead had dangerous old space heaters plugged in all over the house. There were cords underfoot at every turn. They apparently spent a full time day walking around and turning these units on and off. Including in your bedroom and the bathroom. In exchange, you had the comfort of their 5 smelly old cats. "We hope you don't mind cat hair," they said. I don't much, until it gets congested in your rusty old heaters and causes a fire. How a kitty litter box smells placed in front of a space heater (with blower) is another matter;
-Tried to rent me a tiny room or unit, then use said unit to store their excess furniture. I mean inconvenient hunks of furniture to which they wanted regular access. Example: "You don't mind if I get my bike out of your miniscule kitchen every day at 5:30 am & return it at 6 pm, do you?" Yes, unless the rent is under $200, I damn do well mind. And if you're going to do that, don't call it an "apartment" and a "tenancy." We are sharing a living space. Actually, it's more like I'm living in your storage room. A proposition that should be much cheaper.
Oh, and the 7' X 5' armoire in the 8' X 10' bedroom is of virtually no use to me when it is full of your plaid shirts and tragically unwashed fortrel pants, so don't try to convince me. Ditto for the 6' long bureau in the narrow hallway, crammed with 1959-96 Readers Digests.
-Let me know rent would rise as they "renovated." Upon further questioning, it seems there wasn't a usable bathroom or habitable living room in the first place. I would be renting a construction site. $500 to start, who knows how much once there was a toilet. Not to mention the lady told me she shaves her cats bald. She was losing her own hair in menopause, and felt "cats are so empathetic." Dear genius, the cats didn't shave themselves for love of you. What was your first clue you're a monster?;
-Advertised their unheated, cement-floored garage as A comfortable living area that doubles as a work space for the healing arts practitioner. The ad sounded pretty good. Real Old Vancouver groovy hippie. To their credit, they had painted the floor an attractive, healing vomit colour and simulated a rug texture;
-Tried to rent me a cot by the furnace with, “At least you'll be warm”. Was this a kind hearted working class person who just wanted everyone to have a home, no matter how humble? Noooo. This was a Dunbar matron whose marble-pillared mansion backed onto the golf course. She wanted that extra $450 pin money. Plus utilities. For golfing fees, I assume;
-Clearly did not want tenants who owned any personal possessions. None. If it was a shared house, they would not make one iota of cupboard, closet or wall space. See above re: furniture storage. And I'm not talking about harried, multi-child single parents living in a tiny downtown high rise. These were businesswomen from Kits to south Richmond, sometimes with one child, rattling around in 4000 square foot homes. And from the looks of the furnishings (two big screen TVs, two complete sets of Calphalon pans) they were not only doing well themselves, but had absolutely wiped out the ex.
The room they were offering in this “shared” housing was invariably situated right between to their dawn to dusk home office and the living room---which is where they saw their clients. For massage, for bookkeeping, for creative spelunking. "Ooops, didn't I tell you you could only use the living room on Sundays? Unless, of course, I have a client that day."
I knew right away my domestic life would consist of scuttling back and forth to the bathroom through Ms. Entrepreneur's tangle of wires. The spacious rec room was for the exclusive use of the child. Did this gracious living merit a gracious rate of rent? Hell, no. This was the one area in which they absolutely insisted on "cooperative living." Much like the last bastion of equal rights between the sexes in Vancouver is on the bus. But that's a rant for another day.
Ironically, they were usually the ones with whom I initially had warm, lengthy phone conversations re: their desire to have "real roommates, not tenants," and "build a community here." They always expressed hurt surprise that the last two roommates "just weren't community minded." They wasted a lot of my time. And expressed shocked and genteel disappointment when I politely declined their "new age alternate life style vision." In a way, I understand. My little Sears pans would look pretty sad next to the Calphalons. I mean, if they made room for my pans. Which they wouldn't.
I met one who even refused to allow me to bring in my own new, clean bed. She insisted the tenant had to accept a funky old "heritage" mattress from her grandparents, further slept upon by the last twenty years worth of tenants.
Okay, so you're stingy and eccentric. But dear landlady, don't you wonder what kind of person has 0 possessions? Even 8 year olds have a bug collection and Hot Wheels. And need a place to keep them. In my experience, people with 0 are either addicts who've recently been ripped off or depressed guys who just had divorces so miserable, you don't want them around. Or maybe you do, just so you can punish them some more. The tenancy version of sado-masochism. Do I have mommy issues, you ask. You mean you don't?;
-On top of charging market rate rent, obviously were angling for me to be a free babysitter to the kids who were, at this moment, rifling through my purse and wiping their snotty fingers on mama's skirt;
-Lied lied lied. Said the room was "main floor,"and the house was "nonsmoking" when it was, once again, a damp, cold, unfinished basement. Next to the filthy, nicotine-encrusted rec room where, "We hope you don't mind our friends crash during our weekly drinking parties. This will also be where you keep your personal computer." These people were West side, and in their 30's. And this was at more than one house.
-Were evangelicals. They wasted my time on the phone or in person, convincing me what "nice" people they were. And then, "Oh, one more thing. I am born again/washed in the blood (ick) and I won't allow you: overnight guests, any reading materials but an approved version of the Bible (mine), music, entry after 9 pm or an opinion”;
-Imposed all kinds of extra charges. Which they didn't tell me about until they knew I was hooked. They'd advertise a tenancy as "all-inclusive." After I praised the hardwood floors or vaulted whatever, they let me have it. The paid extra: heat, water, Internet, phone (if there was one---usually there wasn't), parking, yard use, cable TV, laundry. Occasionally furniture I didn't need. See "furniture storage," above. Yes, they charged to store their crap. $600 all-inclusive turned out to be as much as $800. And did I say your own phone was on top of that? Cell, because they wouldn't allow a land line for the tenants, even when I offered to pay for installation.
-Then there was the gem of a guy who I actually rented from. Half of a spacious, 2 bedroom suite I would share with a barely-there student. $600 each. I arrived two days before the end of the month to sign the lease. He was hammering in the fireplaced living room.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Making a third bedroom."
"Whaaaaat? I rented a 2 bedroom with a living room. Look, it's almost move in day. If you're doing this, I expect to pay no more than $300. And I want compensation to move elsewhere. I'll have to put things in storage."
"Too bad. You're still each paying $600. You haven't signed an agreement not to." He kept hammering and smirking.
Of course I left. But in the end, he won. I'm sure he had no trouble renting to the next rube.
People kept telling me to "report" these situations. To whom? And when? I was in the time-consuming frenzy of house hunting. Most of these situations are not illegal, just weird and mean spirited. Vancouver City doesn't dictate terms for renting out a room in your home.
Although it was alarming how many people turned from friendly to frosty when I said I'd like a written agreement and to pay rent directly to a landlord. A lot of tenants are hurting, scrabbling to pay rent on homes no one should be asked to afford. Illegal sublets, where you have 0 rights under the Residential Tenancy Act, are rampant. You can't even call the landlord in a plumbing emergency---because he doesn't know you live there, and would penalize the leasor if he did. I'd run into that one just before I had to move. Irate landlady storms out of her SUV and screams at me to answer whether I live there or am just visiting. And keeps coming back to check after I lie.
I've heard of landlords doing this to more than one person per month. Usually from some nice person sobbing on a bus or bench, surrounded by Hefty bags. Does this person have the time or money to pursue legal action? Not if they want a place to sleep or eat that week.
My stuff stayed in storage and my body in temporary lodgings for four months. Tell me I'm picky and have a fear of commitment, just don't tell me you want to rent me your "nice clean basement with a view."
Copyright 2008 Reisa Stone
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