Chilliwack Times, November 12, 2015

RED-HOT CHIEFS CONTINUE WINNING WAYS AS STREAK NOW SITS AT SIX Hockey club finds itself just two points out of first place { Page A11 }

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2015

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THE NOT SO SUITE LIFE OF R A LANDLORD

Players Guild brings Snow White panto to Centre stage { Page A19 } @chilliwacktimes

Run out of his own home, Rob Hind found the rental game is not for the faint of heart BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com ob Hind spent the summer and early fall living in his van parked behind his small Vedder Road

business. As the cooler, wetter weather arrives, he’s happy to finally get a roof over his head for the winter. Hind isn’t homeless. He isn’t even one of those looking to find a decent place to rent in Chilliwack. No, Hind is a homeowner, run out of his own downtown house by terrible tenants in what had turned out to be a renting disaster. “This has been a huge nightmare,” he says. “Some days I am not myself.” It all started when Hind’s wife and daughter died tragically. He decided to renovate his home, move into the basement and rent out the main floor. The problem, which he concedes is partly of his own making, began when he rented to a woman without doing much research.

Paul J. Henderson/TIMES

Chilliwack homeowner Rob Hind and the van he has been living in since he was run out of his own house by bad tenants in June.

“T The girrl stayin ng theree now, she just got released d from jail. She hasn’tt ever paid me on ne penny.” - Ro Rob Hi Hind nd “I am partly to blame,” he says. A simple search on the public Ministry of Justice Court Services Online website would have told Hind that the 60-year-old woman who gave him $500 and signed a residential tenancy agreement has been before the court on drug trafficking and weapons charges. Soon into the tenancy, the 40-something daughter of the original tenant moved in and that’s when the real “nightmare” began. Drug dealing, visitors at all hours and then the vicious dogs. And, of course, the critical fact that no one was paying Hind any rent. “The girl staying there now, she just got released from jail,” Hind said

in early October. “She hasn’t ever paid me one penny.” In June, when the living conditions became too much to handle, he moved into his van. Luckily he has a shower at his small business, but his bureaucratic battle to evict tenants that seem to know how to work the system has proved painful. He thought he caught a break when the daughter was arrested and put in jail. He gave a 24-hour inspection notice but nobody would let him in, and he was too scared of the dogs to use his key and enter. Hind has frequently called the police but says he gets little or no help from them. And therein lies the Catch-22: Police tell him it’s a civil matter and he needs to deal with the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB). “But since [the original tenant] moved out, the Residential Tenancy Branch says they are strangers in your house. It should be a police matter.” { See LANDLORD, page A4 }

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