My letter to strata

[HEyHEY]

I have been a tenant in 1503, (Withheld for DU) Jervis St. since April. I am a professional journalist, have no criminal record, and have good references from previous landlords. Emerald West is the seventh apartment in which I have lived. I have never seen such unreasonable bullying, petty complaints and childish behaviour from a strata board in my adult life.

The saga begins in May. Five of us were in the apartment having some wine and listening to some music. The concierge knocked on the door and told us we had a noise complaint. To out knowledge the music wasn’t very loud and it was before ten, but we turned it down anyway.

Being a new tenant and feeling guilty about the situation, I went to the door across the hall, assuming that was the complainant. My intention was to apologize and offer her my phone number for her to call if it was still too loud. No one even answered the door.

The next week, we received a noise complaint under similar circumstances. We could not figure out how five people could get a complaint from a reasonable person as there were, again, only the tenants and two guests in the apartment and the music wouldn’t have been very loud.

We never received a noise complaint before then, I’m told, and never received a warning. Instead, strata hit our landlord with $200 fines for each of the noise violations. Considering there were no previous warnings and on both occasions only one notice of the noise being too loud was needed, this is an unreasonable abuse of strata’s ability to impose fines.

However, the harassment didn’t stop there. Soon strata were targeting us for a number of supposed violations, all of them exaggerated or, in some cases, flat out lies. For example, we were told a group of people wanted to enter our apartment at 3:30 am and they began yelling when the concierge would not allow them entry. No one in the apartment was aware of this happening. No one in the apartment received a phone call from friends outside. And the concierge or building management did not inform us of this supposed incident until it passed unto us a list of complaints. This leads me to believe it never happened.

Another complaint about the parking pass missing is also invalid. Our guest went to the concierge desk and dropped it off because the desk was empty. Our guest has no reason to steal a parking pass, hence, I believe the pass was lost by management and blamed on us.

Another troubling incident happened recently when the concierge refused entry to a registered tenant of the apartment apparently on orders from strata and management. This is an illegal act and if it happens again the authorities will be notified and if criminal charges can be laid in the situation I will seek prosecution. This kind of childish direction from strata and management is sure to only inflame the situation and is completely counter-productive.
Our landlord was also told we were running a business out of the apartment and that we had some unreasonable amount of people living here. Neither of these are true.

Recently, my roommate, Troy, went to speak to management about our situation. He ended up in a conversation with Mary, the strata president, who told him there was, “too much coming and going,” from our apartment. And this was a cause for complaints. It is illegal under the Residential Tenancy Act for a landlord to put restrictions on how often tenants come and go. So, there is no way such a bylaw can be enforced by strata. As well, that has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Should we start issuing people a certain amount of entry and exit passes for the building per day?

For all the above reasons I have no other conclusion to reach except for that strata are targeting my roommates and myself in an attempt to bully us into leaving. We have been told by un-named sources it is likely because we are young and Caucasian. In light of this information I have already begun examining my legal options including a prosecution of strata in front of the BC Human Rights Tribunal as age and race are unacceptable forms of discrimination within the Province of British Columbia.

I have also been told I may have a strong case for a personal harassment tort or even a private criminal prosecution. These are not idle threats and I do not wish to pursue them. However, if strata does not stop it’s childish harassment of myself and my roommates. I feel these ugly avenues will be my only choice.

While I have the attention of the board, I would like to bring up the subject of an umbrella stand outside the door of unit 1502. I am not sure if, according to strata bylaws, it is legal to have personal belongings in a common area, but if it isn’t I would like it removed because it is an eyesore (it looks like a half-finished Salvador Dali piece) and a possible hazard in the event of an emergency.

I hope this letter is productive.

Sincerely,

[RadiationTherapy]

1. Did you send it already? I have some grammar crabs. nt

[HEyHEY]

2. No, that's a first draft - haven't even proofed it yet

[RadiationTherapy]

6. Cool. I would leave out the caucasian bit.

I would leave out the 'adult life' part as you cannot rent otherwise.

'the saga BEGAN in May'

I would leave out the bit about knocking on the neighbor's door. Irrelevant as they did not answer.

If your intuition about being bullied out is correct, they would never admit it. The accusation may be counterproductive.

[Midlodemocrat]

3. Great letter, J. Hope it helps.

[HEyHEY]

4. I just hope that damned umbrellas stand is moved!

[MrCoffee]

5. Nice post, whitey

Damn kids and their damn rock music.

[HEyHEY]

7. My roomate said this letter "Enraged" strata

HAHAHAHA
Truth hurts, eh fuckheads!

He was at a meeting with them and our landlord. At first, they didn't even want him to speak because he doesn't own the unit.... what kind of fucked up wanna be fuedal system is this?
Anyway, halfway through the letter the dude says, "Oh, so I'm a liar now, am I?"

Well, buddy... that's what the lack of evidence suggests...