When homeowner Nina Chhina decided to rent her home out for the first time ever, she never imagined her tenant would end up trashing her home and the value of it.
Chhina says an appraiser told her the value of her home has now depreciated by $85,000 due to the extensive damage.
“The floors are destroyed, we have to remove the kitchen floor, all the carpets in the bedroom are destroyed and those have to be removed and taken out, a lot of the baseboards in the house have to be removed and taken out,” Chhina said as she explained what she saw when she did a walk-through of her home.
Chhina says the stench of garbage, urine, and feces in her house is unbearable, there were many fruit flies everywhere, the house had loads of garbage everywhere, and there were several stains on the walls and floors.
Chhina rented out her three-bedroom, two-car garage door duplex to a woman with four kids initially for $1,500 a month, but then the tenant insisted on renting out the garage as well, bringing the rent up to $1,900 a month.
According to Chhina, the tenant stayed at her property from last December to this August, adding those nine months were a complete nightmare, from the bad communication she had with the tenant to the numerous complaints she received from the neighbours in regards to the noise and mess around the home.
“Every time there was an issue with her that we addressed with her, she had every excuse under the sun: this happened, that happened, this person died, this person died,” Chhina said.
“It was just constant excuse after excuse after excuse.”
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She says every room in the house needs to be gutted in order to be restored and that the loss of rental income and damages — which keeps growing — is currently around $70, 000.
“With the removal of things, I mean time spent, the people we having coming to help us, all the kind of stuff, the amount of products I’ve had to buy to clean the house, just everything, we’re well over,’ Chhina said.
Her tenant eventually had to be forced out, after continually being late on rent by weeks or not even paying it at all.
Now Chhina is planning to take her to court to be able to recover the money she’s had to put into fixing the property, however there are still several challenges standing in the way.
Cameron Choquette, the CEO of the Saskatchewan Landlord Association, says the cost from the damage exceeds $30,000, meaning Chhina will need to settle the matter in the Court of Queen’s Bench.
One of the major struggles Chhina is facing includes knowing where the tenant now lives in order to be able to serve them with court documents.
Chhina says the tenant has cut communication with her and has blocked her email.
“Unfortunately our industry has to face those costs and swallow them in a lot of cases where we can’t find tenants to run through collections procedures in Saskatchewan, because unfortunately the legislation doesn’t have enough teeth,” Choquettem said.
Choquettem says the Saskatchewan Landlord Association is working towards seeing legislation around landlord rights changed, so that individuals like Chhina don’t find themselves in situations where the landlord has to pay a tremendous amount of money out of pocket in order to fix destruction caused to their property by the tenant.
Chhina says once her home is fixed, she has no desire to ever be a landlord again and plans to sell it.
But she fears she might have to rent it for a short period of time if that ends up being her best option once repairs are completed.
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