Halifax tenant locked out of apartment after fighting landlord eviction

A Halifax man says he’s without a place to live after returning home from work to find his belongings thrown out of his apartment.

While Nova Scotia’s tenancy board said he has a right to stay, the man can no longer access the unit due to ongoing renovations.

Floyd Poulain had been living in the apartment, in the Fairview neighbourhood, for four years. The incident happened last week and he is now uncertain how to proceed.

“Kitchen table, lots of dishes in the cupboard, all gone,” he said.

“The bedroom set is gone. Somebody called me up on the phone and said, ‘your bedroom set is going down the road, someone’s taking your bedroom set and your mattresses’ and I said, ‘Holy mackerel!'”

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Poulain says he was fighting an eviction notice at the time, on the premise that the landlord wanted to move family into his unit.

He recently testified to the Nova Scotia Residential Tenancies Board, which agreed he has the right to remain in his unit. However, due to ongoing renovations, he hasn’t actually been able to move back in.

“The place is totally demolished. The bathtubs, everything is gone,” he explained.

The 11-unit building was purchased in September by a company called People’s Property Limited.

Poulain’s legal representative, Sydnee Blum, says the building owners entered Poulain’s apartment after a misunderstanding where his keys ended up in the hands of the superintendent while he wasn’t home.

“The landlord had gone into the apartment and thrown all the furniture and belongings in there out into a dumpster and onto the front lawn and has since started doing renovations on the unit,” Blum said.

“My client is being refused access to the unit and it’s now being made unlivable by renovations.”

Poulain says he’s assessing his options and knows it will cost thousands of dollars to replace his belongings. He’s also unsure where he will live next.

In a statement to Global News, the landlord’s lawyer, Derek Brett, says that Poulain “abandoned the former rental property.”

Brett says his client looks forward to vindicating his name in the courts, and will “allow for the evidence to speak for itself.”