“A scene from a horror film” is how a Yarmouth, N.S., couple describes their rental property after their former tenant left following a three-month stay.
The owners, Jillian Smith and Shawn Douglas, now face significant repair costs as they try to pick up the pieces.
From piles of beer cans to rotten food, broken windows, and holes in the walls and ceilings, it’s beyond what they could imagine.
“To see all the money we’d put into it, just torn apart in like three months was overwhelming,” Douglas said.
The couple say the tenant was recommended to them by Shyft House, a Yarmouth non-profit that works with youth facing homelessness.
The house had been sold this past summer, but they decided not to hand over the keys until the new year to let another longtime tenant downstairs stay for a few extra months.
In the meantime, they welcomed a new tenant downstairs.
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Then, they say, things took a turn.
“My phone started going off. It was my realtor, it was my lawyer, it was the RCMP. It was phone call after phone call after phone call,” Smith said.
“From what we understand, the first situation was this: all sorts of damage to the front of the house, broken windows and smashed walls.”
After the first month, Smith says the tenant stopped paying rent and police frequently responded to calls at the address. An eviction order was eventually given, but the damage was already done.
Smith says they’re speaking out because while the RCMP and Nova Scotia Residential Tenancies Board were helpful, they feel legislation has “swung too far” and landlords are not as protected as they could be.
“The legislation is really tying people’s hands because there’s so much formality,” she said, while pointing to the delays they faced with the eviction process despite being considered an emergency situation.
All this, she says, could deter other landlords from offering affordable units.
The couple say this was the only rental property they owned, and they bought it as a way to offer below-marketplace rent to new Canadians, retirees and those with special needs.
“We covered the heat, the water, the electric. We had a modest rent. We wanted to be those landlords that gave people a hand up. And we will never do this again,” Smith said.
“So someone will come in here and buy a home like this and they’ll charge double the rent now and they’ll get it. And the reason they’re doing it is because they have to have something in the bank for when stuff like this goes down.”
Shyft House declined an interview when contacted by Global News.
The couple estimate the repairs to cost at least $5,000.