I sort-of moved in to my new apartment on Saturday. I say sort-of, because I still haven’t met the landlord, received keys, or completed the inspection report. I’m not very happy with the state of things.
When I first got to the building, I asked a lady who lived there to let me in.
“Oh, are you moving in?” She asks.
“Yes!” I say, still excited about my new move, “I move in today.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. You’re making a big mistake. Well, have a nice day dearie.” And then she dissapeared in the elevator.
The next wonderful thing that happened is that I was given the keys to the wrong apartment. Well, kind of. See, when I talked with the Landlord over the phone, he told me that I was to move into apartment 704. When I spoke with him later that day, and then again to his assistant, I was to move in to apartment 704. When I opened the door to 704, I found shoes, a bike, and a couch sitting in my apartment. A few minutes later, I also found a girl named Now. Now was very nice, but didn’t understand why I was in her apartment. Neither did I.
As it turns out, I actually rented apartment 705. Nobody noticed the off-by-one error except Now and myself. So I went back downstairs, swapped keys with the assistant landlord, and moved in to 705.
Since moving into apartment 705, I have noticed several problems.
- The bathtub doesn’t drain
- The toilet doesn’t flush well (but he did throw in a free plunger)
- There is a hole in the roof
- The Fire alarm doesn’t work
- There was a layer of black mold around all of the windows
- All of the ducts are blocked by 4 mm of solid dust
- The fan in the bathroom doesn’t work
- The fan in the kitchen doesn’t work
- The Oven doesn’t work
- The whole place hadn’t really been cleaned
- I still don’t have a key to the front building, or my door. Just a deadbolt key.
- The sink is contantly running
- If you turn the cold water on in the kitchen, the tap sprays you in the crotch with cold water
- When he painted, he didn’t strip the old stuff. He just painted over mold, cracked paint, electrical pannels, outlets, etc.
- He patched a whole in the roof of the bathroom, but didn’t bother to paint
- Half of the windows in my apartment won’t open.
- The other half won’t close
- I didn’t get the blinds he promised me
- He said he’d strip and refinish the hardwood floor. Guess what he didn’t do.
- The tiles in the kitchen are not attached to the floor
There are a few other things that escape me right now.
On the plus side, it has a killer view.
After spending a bit of time in the place, I went and found a new apartment down the street. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out for me yet. I still have to get a hold of the tennants rights association to see what rights I have with respect to moving out on the same day that I moved in.
Admittedly, I am partly to blame for taking a place that I hadn’t seen. But it sounded really good on paper, and I asked all of the right questions to my landlord, he just lied to me about the state the place would be in when I got there.
Ah well, at least the view is nice.
maybe he described Now’s placethat really sucks though. hope the new place is better.
Welcome to rental housing in Vancouver!You pay too much and nothing works! In the house that I’m living in now:- the attic, my bedroom, isn’t insulated- the window have that black mold thing happening (hard to avoid in old damp places in Van.)- I’ve trapped three squirrels and the cat has caught 8 miceOtherwise its a great place to live. As a renter I’ve learned what I can’t do without and made the best of the other dificiencies that I can live with.AndrewIn vancouver the tenants rights coalition is: http://www.tenants.bc.ca/
With the rain and flooding, I’m hoping its not a basement suite… Whats it like to leave snow and 30 below weather, to come back to torrential rains? Terri
Terri: What’s it like? It’s very very wet. Andrew: Hey, at least you have an abundant supply of pets!