The little and tidy Bungalow Hamilton where Grgic once raised his children is destroyed.
Hard wood floors are covered with dog stool, with some of the excrement that grow mold in the kitchen. The living room is covered with belongings and garbage, dog toys and a shattered cat support. The front wall and the window sprinkle and scratch what it looks like blood. A spicy ammonia smell permeates the home.
Grgic and her husband, Marinko Vrbanic, showed CBC Hamilton the status of his house of Stoney Creek a day after they obtained permission from the lessor and the Board of Tenants of Ontario (LTB) to evict the tenant for not paying more than $ 24,000 for rent.
It was an order that Grgic had tried to obtain for a full year. He gave the tenant an N4 notice in early 2024, he requested the LTB that march and the eviction order was granted in July, but then he had to wait until last week to finally be able to change the locks.
“I’m not exaggerating, this was the worst year of my life,” Grgic said. “I am so disgusted. I would never think this is the real system, but I learned reality.”
Grgic said a contractor has determined the plaster panels, the floor and the subfloing, and the appliances must be replaced, partly to get rid of the smell, exceeding the estimated $ 100,000.
The tenant did not respond to multiple phone calls, text messages, social media messages or emails personally or his business requesting a comment before and after it was evicted last week. CBC Hamilton also contacted the Ontario Tenants Defense Center (act).
Douglas Kwan, director of Defense and Legal Services of Act, said that in general terms, it is out of the norm that the tenants do not pay the rent. He declined to comment on this specific case.
Previous tenant evictions found in LTB
For Grgic, 47, the experience has cost him more than money.
She emigrated to Canada from Croatia as a single mother of two and worked long hours as a personal support worker. She bought the Bungalow 14 years ago. When she and Vrbanic, 59, married last year, decided to live in their place and rent her.
“Actually it is more a sentimental value than money,” he said.
After the tenant requested to rent it, his references were verified, Vrbanic said, although they did not look at their credit history or requested that the LTB provide previous decisions that involve it. He paid first and the rental of last month in November 2023. But from there, the situation was unraveled, the rent was not remunerated and Grgic said that he saw that his house was “destroyed.”
VRBANIC later discovered on the website Open room – An online database of crowdsourcing online orders, which the tenant had been evicted in 2020 and 2022 of two other Hamilton houses for not paying the rent. In each case, the owners owed more than $ 15,000, according to those decisions of LTB.
Small owners Through Ontario They have told CBC News in recent years that they have been victims of tenants who know how to use the LTB for their advantage. The owners say that these tenants intentionally Drag the procedures For months, without paying the rent and, in some cases, destroy the property.
An owner in Oshawa said that he was not allowed to evict a tenant from his rental property for months even after A fire began inside him. Another owner, in Ottawa, stayed with holes on the wallsBroken lights and taps, an obstructed bath and other problems when a tenant, which did not pay the rent for 11 months, was finally evicted.
Four different owners in the same suburb of Ottawa and its surroundings say that they have been victims of the same “professional” tenants who have been living mostly without rent for years. The owners say that more than four years, the couple accumulated almost $ 100,000 for unpaid rental.
Grgic said the “destruction” to his house could have been avoided if he had allowed him to evict the tenant last summer. She said she is talking to warn other small owners about the challenges in the system.
“Nobody cares,” he said. “You are alone on your own.”
Ongoing Animal Welfare Research
Last August, the tenant successfully requested the LTB to review the July eviction order because he said he did not know about the hearing, according to the final decision of the court last week.
The Board had sent the audience information to an email for the legal clinic that helped it with the case, but the tenant said he did not receive it, according to the decision.
A new audience took place at the end of October, but the tenant also did not attend, according to the decision. An eviction order was reissued for November. The tenant also requested a review of that, writing in a letter to the LTB that had not received that notice and that “it would certainly be homeless” if it was evicted. The eviction order stayed again.
Grgic and Vrbanic said they sent the audience information by email.
Meanwhile, home conditions deteriorated quickly, Grgic said. They had trouble getting access to make inspections, since they were afraid to be attacked by three dogs inside. Grgic said the dogs and a cat were alone in the house from September.
The neighbor Josie Sorbara could listen to the dogs “barking all the time” and would see them committed to the front window, said the 86 -year -old man to CBC Hamilton. Grgic said the neighbors also reported a dog fight for her and that the blood was stained through the front window.
Then there was a flood.
A tenant who lives in the basement unity notified Grgic when the water began to group on the roof.
Grgic and her husband entered the house with the police, as captured in a video seen by CBC Hamilton. Animal Welfare Services, a provincial agency, temporarily assured dogs so they could enter, said Grgic.
They discovered that a pipe had been removed under the bathroom sink and the tap left, which caused the water to filter into other rooms and the basement unit underneath, said Vrbanic.
“All that peanut and pee of dogs with mixed water and down through the roof, isolation, vents, lights, it was just a disaster,” said Vrbanic.
Water and electricity had to close for security reasons, he said.
The basement tenant moved after flooding, and Grgic recovered possession of that unit in February, according to an LTB eviction order.
The dogs and the cat continued to remain in the unit above for another week until the animal services carried them, he said.
The Ministry of the Attorney General, who enforces animal welfare laws in the province, said that from last week, the investigation is ongoing and would be inappropriate to comment.
Request for hearing issued denied
Grgic tried to obtain an accelerated audience for the case against the tenant of the main floor in December, arguing without possession of the house, he could not address flood damage, such as mold and mold.
That request was denied.
“If the unit is damaged out of repair, there is no problem in the unit that becomes irreparable; it is already irreparable,” Judge Renée Lang wrote on January 2.
The final hearing took place on March 18 and the tenant did not appear, according to the decision.
Grgic was allowed to change the locks last week. She has decided not to harm the damage to the small claims courts, since she doubts her if she won.
The couple said their next steps will be gutting the house. Then they will wait to see if their insurance will cover any of the repairs, since their case is currently being reviewed. Otherwise, they will have to renew it step by step, as Grgic did when he moved for the first time.
Beyond that, they do not know if they will ever rent it again unless the LTB changes how it handles eviction cases.
LTB length ‘inexcusable’, says the defender
The Ontario courts, which supervises the LTB, did not comment on this case specifically, but said in an email that more than half of the requests submitted are to evict the tenants accused of not paying the rent.
In recent years, the LTB has shortened the amount of time that has been obtaining an order, said Veronica Spada spokesman. In 2023, the owners generally had to wait for eight to 10 months for an audience, and now wait about three months, he said.
This waiting estimate does not take into account if a tenant requests a review and a new hearing must take place, or how long it takes for the judges to issue their orders.
The LTB process still takes an “inexcusable” time, said Kathy Laird, lawyer of the Watch Ontario court, a public interest group that monitors the court system of the province. Waiting for a year, as Grgic did, “it’s not good, it’s not good at all,” said Laird.
Before 2018, the LTB was able to deal with the cases of eviction from beginning to end within two months, said Laird, who worked as a judge in several other ontarium courts. If a tenant lost an audience, another could be scheduled the next day.
After the Doug Ford government took power in 2018, the experienced judges left and the “efficient” audiences were changed to virtual audiences in the course of the pandemic, all of which slowed the process, he said.
“This is really injured to the owners and also the tenants.”
Laird said that 40 percent of Ontario residents are tenants and the vast majority pay their rent in time.
But the LTB should be able to deal with atrocious cases quickly so that owners can take possession, repairs and find new tenants who need housing as soon as possible, said Laird.
“The quality of the court service has deteriorated surprisingly. Nothing works efficiently.”
