Tenants of a rental home in Mount Pleasant say they are being kicked out so their landlord can rent out the house during the Olympics for $11,900 a week – which would break a City bylaw.
The eight tenants of the home on East 11th Ave. and St. Catherines St. received notices two weeks ago that their tenancy was being terminated so the landlord’s family could use the house.
But Sue Brown, a Simon Fraser University student who rents a room for $580 a month, said the house is being advertised for rent during the Games at sporteventsrentmyhouse.com.
The posting offers the home at $11,900 a week for a minimum of two weeks and $34,000 for February and March.
“It’s a horrible, vulnerable, awful feeling to lose your home and have no control when it happens,” Brown said yesterday. “We all feel really powerless.”
Laura Track, a lawyer with Pivot Legal Society, said the tenants don’t have much recourse because they signed leases until Jan. 31, under the assumption it would then go to a month-by-month agreement.
“B.C.’s tenancy protections are among the weakest in the country,” Track said. “(Vancouver has) a less than one per cent vacancy rate and high (rent) and (loopholes in the Act) put tenants in an even more vulnerable position.”
Celine Mauboules, a housing policy planner with the City, said the temporary accommodation bylaw forbids landlords from renting properties during the Games if they’ve had tenants living there since June 1, 2009.
“Technically, (this landlord) wouldn’t be allowed a licence,” Mauboules said. “If the tenants came to us and said, ‘Here’s the ad (online),’ we could seek an injunction or potentially fine the owner.”
Mauboules said council adopted the bylaw to prevent landlords from evicting tenants to make way for Olympic renters.
She said concerned tenants can file a complaint with the Tenancy Resource And Advisory Centre (TRAC), which the City cross-references when it provides licences to landlords renting out property during the Olympics.
Calls to the landlords, Karagiozov Gerenska and Mariana Konstantin, were not returned by press time.
