For me, as for most second year UVic students, the most exciting part of going back to school this year was moving out of res and into a house with my best friends. Throughout the summer, all I thought about was how we were going to decorate our new place and how fun it was going to be to live on our own. Unfortunately, the move wasn’t so idyllic. When we arrived on move-in day, the place was a disaster. The carpets were dirty, there were spider webs everywhere and there was mold in the bathrooms. It wasn’t too long before we discovered that the fire alarms didn’t even have batteries in them and the furnace was broken. We wanted to be personalizing our new place and getting ready to host our first housewarming party, but we found ourselves up to our ears in dust and mold and blowing our student budgets on batteries and cleaning supplies. We knew we were renting a “student house,” but we didn’t expect it to be so disgusting. Was all this cleaning and housework really our responsibility? It wasn’t until we spoke to our friends in similar situations that we realized that the conditions of our house weren’t legal but they are common. Some landlords are quick to neglect the B.C. Tenancy act in hopes that their student tenants will just accept the poor conditions. My roommates and I have since familiarized ourselves with the B.C. Tenancy Act and asked our landlord to help clean up the house.
Looking back, these are the five points from the B.C. Tenancy Act that I wish I had known before moving into my student house:
1. You MUST do a walk through of the rental unit at the start of the rental period. This way your landlord can’t pin any of the damages that were already there on you. As long as you keep the place in the same condition as the day of the walk-through, your landlord has to give you your security deposit back.
2. The house must be handed over in a clean and safe condition. Though general cleaning and yard work is likely your responsibility (depending on what your tenancy agreement says), you should not have to be fixing smoke detectors and deep cleaning your carpets when you first move into your new place. Any problems , which arise while you’re living there, such as burnt-out light bulbs or broken appliances, are your landlord’s responsibility to fix in a timely fashion as well.
3. (This one kind of sucks). Even if the landlord hasn’t complied with the Tenancy act, you still have to pay your rent when it is due. On the flip side, your landlord can’t take any of your things even if you don’t follow the tenancy agreement.
4. Your landlord can’t enter your properties without twenty-four hours of notice, unless you give him/her permission at the door.
5. If you can’t resolve a conflict with your landlord, you can apply for dispute resolution here and take them to court.
I am pleased to say that, after holding our landlord accountable for his responsibilities, we are now living happily ever after in our clean little student house!
If you’re interested in learning more about the B.C. Tenancy Act, the link is right here: http://www.housing.gov.bc.ca/rtb/bc_laws/RTA.html#section58