I Was Renovicted During the COVID-19 Pandemic
And a few tips on how to avoid such a situation.
With less than a week’s notice, I was expected to move out of my place in Vancouver, Canada purportedly due to repair work.
On Saturday, April 4th 2020, while returning to my mini-studio with its private entrance in a big rental house, I noticed that a basement room was emptied out. Something didn’t feel right so I decided go into the main house to investigate. My gut feeling was right as all rooms had been vacated.
Surprised, I texted a couple of tenants who were friendly with me and they told me that the landlords had said that everyone in the house, including me, had to move out temporarily. To be sure, this had happened a few months earlier when we were moved to another of their houses over a weekend. The reason was unclear but had something to do with testing the structure of the house. We were later reimbursed a portion of the rent and I obviously appreciated this gesture and told all my friends about it. Everyone agreed that I had great landlords.
The next day, I assumed I would have to move for a couple of days again but was a little concerned about being able to find a quiet space to work online in the other house. It was a busy house full of housemates whereas I was alone in my place. The other, more important worry was about the pandemic. We were somewhere near the peak of the COVID-19 crisis and I wanted to be able to self-isolate but this would be impossible in a house full of people.
I was shocked on Monday, the 6th when my landlord met me and announced that there was a leak in the roof that could bring the whole house down and didn’t ask but told me that they were moving me to another house in the south of the city. I asked him for how long, what the rent would be and if I would be alone. He said that they couldn’t be sure about how long it would take for the work to get done and that my rent being lower than the actual rate (whatever that meant) I would have to pay the same amount. Worst of all, I had my own bathroom but in the new place, I would have to share one with other tenants. When I pointed out that I was not being given much notice, he asked sarcastically “How much notice should I give you? One month?” Umm yeah! I was expected to give a month’s notice if I was moving out.
I spent the rest of the evening stressing about what to do and spoke to a couple of friends, one of whom happened to be a real estate lawyer. The emergency in place due to the pandemic meant that evictions were illegal so one friend told me that I was under no obligation to budge and suggested I stay put. My lawyer friend did some research on the city’s website and dug out the title deed of the house which was in the name of a student, presumably the offspring of a wealthy mainland China resident who owned the house. Furthermore, she found a permit allowing for the house to be demolished.
Vancouver is notorious for a phenomenon called “renoviction”, a porte-manteau combining the words renovation and eviction wherein a tenant is evicted on the pretext that the house is going to be renovated. Now, barely 9 months since my arrival in the city, it was apparent that I was being renovicted, that too in the middle of a pandemic.
Canada seemed to be a good place for me to move since conflict avoidance is an important aspect of the culture here and I was in no mood for conflict. Although my lawyer friend did not handle litigations, she said that I could have made thousands of dollars out of this situation by refusing to move and threatening to report the landlords — two men in the business of managing such properties together — to the authorities. Since it was not in our personality to get into such a situation, the best thing to do was to get out there since I didn’t know if I was in harm’s way by refusing to budge.
My friend advised me to gather evidence of what was happening so I filmed a video of my room saying that that was where I had stayed for the past seven months. A couple of days later, I saw a huge truck pull up in front of the house and the landlords, with a couple of others began loading mattresses and furniture into it. I took pictures and videos of the house being emptied and finally, I walked up to them to tell them that I had decided to stay put since I was not comfortable about moving during the COVID-19 crisis. They called me in to show me the room that had a few damp spots on the ceiling and we discussed the situation in detail. I discreetly recorded the whole thing on my phone.
The conversation confirmed that dealing with them any longer was a bad idea. They began by saying that since I had not signed a lease, there was no proof that I was staying in the room that I was occupying and so they were under no obligation to guarantee to me that I would move back there once the work was over. I countered that saying that I had transferred my rent online and thus had proof of my stay there. Then they argued once again that I was paying lower rent than the “regular rate”. I pointed out that I had not bargained at all and had merely accepted the amount they had asked for. I also made it a point to mention that I had a friend who was a lawyer and that I had seen the permit that allowed for demolition.
They then moved to some strange emotional blackmailing techniques saying that they had had good experiences with Indian tenants but this time they would be more wary of Indians because of their experience with me. Unfortunately for them, they were dealing with the most stoicly unpatriotic person anyone could come across so this ridiculous strategy didn’t work.
If there was anything this discussion proved, it was that I could no longer live in any of their properties and that I quickly needed to find another place and move. I had three days to do it and it was extremely stressful.
I created a mailing list putting five of my friends in touch and sent out regular videos, photos and recordings of my situation. Meanwhile, on my friend’s advice, I emailed the landlords saying that my friends were worried about me and were constantly calling and messaging to check on me. This was in order to ensure my safety by letting them know that I had contacts and nothing untoward could happen to me. I added that I had decided to move but needed my rent for April to be reimbursed. I ended the email saying that I was trying to cooperate with them but needed them to help me help them.
They called me the next day and gave me the option of staying in an AirBnB studio at their expense for a month which would give me the time to look for a place of my own. It seems they realised that they couldn’t just have their way with me. Not wanting to give them any control over me or my decisions, I told them that I needed my money refunded and a little more to pay for my deposit when I found a new place. With the pandemic around, I refused to move to a studio and then once again to another place because it was too risky to move once let alone two times.
Two more stressful days of aggressive researching with scores of emails sent out on Craigslist and Facebook groups got me a couple of virtual visits and a physical one. I finally settled on the last one, ensured that I got my money back and it was finally time to move. Now came another challenge. With COVID, it was hard to find help to move my things and I did not want to take a taxi. After stressing for a few hours, I decided to go for a walk in a park to clear my head and suddenly remembered a friend with whom I used to volunteer who had a van.
I called him, apologised for having to ask for this favour in these risky times but he was very understanding and helped me relax. The next day, I packed up my things and waited for him. Armed with gloves and hand sanitiser, we loaded his van and drove off. I messaged the landlord to say that I had left the keys in the room and hoped to never have to deal with them or such a situation ever again!
Update November 1, 2020
A quick detour past my former house on the drive to a hike in autumn showed that the “repairs” on the leaking roof were well underway. The house had been torn down and was being replaced by a gigantic mansion. An unusual solution to fix a leaking roof you would think, but unfortunately a not so uncommon experience in Vancouver. In fact, some might argue that being renovicted is a right to passage in order to become a local!
Tips when you move to a new place like Vancouver:
- Make sure you sign a lease and if you can’t, do some background checks to ensure that you are in a safe, legitimate housing option. Even if you don’t sign a lease, read the tenancy laws which protect you as a tenant.
- Don’t take up deals that look too good to be true. This was not my case, but in an exorbitant city like Vancouver, one might be tempted by such offers.
- Keep proof of all your rental and utility payments. I do not recommend paying in cash. An interac e-transfer works well because you have a trace of monthly payments.
Hi, I am Prajwal Madhav. I hope you enjoy my posts.
