I'LL TAKE POLICE OVER LANDLORDS, THANKS

When Saanich unveiled its landlord grow-op bylaw, council heard plenty
of opposition from landlords.

They did not hear from any tenants, probably because tenants are less
likely to belong to ratepayers associations or attend council meetings.

As a former co-op student who had to move every four months for four
years, I've lived all over Greater Victoria. And let me tell you - I
don't think a bylaw that encourages landlords to be any more paranoid
or nosy is a good idea.

For me, the new Controlled Substance Property bylaw smacks of
downloading police duties to citizens, who I, quite frankly, don't
think are up for the job.

It's not just that any landlord can miss a grow-op (there were a few
laughs when we found out that a municipally owned rental-property,
containing $50,000 of pot plants and equipment, became the first
grow-op busted since the bylaw was approved by council. What was that
Mayor Frank Leonard said? Oh yes, he said it was "deliciously ironic.")

Of equal concern for tenants is that landlords are not very good at
recognizing innocent tenants. Worse, many landlords are not familiar
with the Residential Tenancy Act, and a concept called the right to
"quiet and peaceful enjoyment of property."

Allow me to share some personal vignettes to illustrate my
point.

It's early Saturday morning and somebody is knocking on my door.
Before I can yell, "Just a minute," or turn over to search for some
clothes, I can hear the sound of a key turning.

"Halloo? You don't mind if we do a little look-see do
you?"

It's my 60-something polyester-clad landlord, arriving unannounced
with a pest control expert in tow to spray some unknown poison on my
kitchen floor.

Talk to tenants of the numerous mom-and-pop run rental properties in
Saanich, especially around UVic and Camosun, and you will hear similar
stories of gross invasions of privacy.

One of my friends at UVic was woken up by a worker wanting to fix an
upper-level leaky toilet that was dripping into her bedroom. Her
landlady forgot to tell her the work was being done and gave the
workmen a key to walk right in. My friend was scared and angry.

The worker was mortified.

In the case of my intrusive landlord, a repeat offender, I should have
known better than to rent from him.

When he showed me the place, he knocked once, then said, "They don't
seem to be home," while letting himself in.

It turns out the tenant was in the bathtub. He took it pretty well,
peaking though the bathroom door to mumble agreement: "Yah, its OK."

It turns out I knew the guy in the sort of friend-of-a-friend way that
is common in a town the size of Victoria.

If memory serves me right, we had worked on a failed biology
assignment together at university.

Awkard does not begin to describe our chance to get
reacquainted.

Then there was the landlord who used to arrive in a flashy car, a girl
on either arm, to tour the dingy apartment my boyfriend rented with a
few friends.

The landlord found their choice of decoration and art so weird and
amusing, he liked to share it with his lady friends. This landlord
also had the nerve to complain that the dishes were not done.

In an amusing aside, my boyfriend and his roommates had their
revenge.

One of them laid down as if murdered, limbs askew, just inside the
front door.

The others marked his outline in tape, doing a remarkably good job of
mimicking a crime scene - very off putting to future tenants touring
the apartment.

The guys promised to erase their handiwork - provided they were given
some warning before future visits.

What does all this have to do with Saanich's new grow-op
bylaw?

When I tried to remind my polyester-clad landlord that he couldn't
just walk into his property without warning, he became suspicious.
"Why?" he said, narrowing his eyes. "You got something to hide?"

The light bulb eventually clicked on for him after my boyfriend
pointed out that a surprise pop-in visit might find us in the midst of
having sex.

Now that Saanich has its new bylaw, I can picture Mr. Polyester
swapping tales with other landlords on the horrors of bylaw inspection
fees for landlords caught with dope-growing tenants. I imagine he's
already plotting ways to look in windows.

Landlords, unlike police, are not trained about what constitutes an
invasion of privacy and civil liberties. This occured to me when I
heard Saanich landlord Vicki Sanders tell council of how she caught
some tenants growing dope in her Saanich property.

Sanders was simply gardening outside, when she heard a fan going in
the basement.

That was enough for her to ask for an inspection.

She repeated the inspections three times, until the young men moved
out.

When I heard this I thought: Wow, I might have moved out if my
landlord was so persistently inspecting my place.

No offence to Sanders, but it kind of wrecks the ability to relax at
home.

It turns out, in her case, she was right. Once her clean-cut tenants
moved out, she found altered wiring and other evidence they were
growing dope. But what if they had not been.

All she was going on was her suspicion because of fan noise and the
fact the boys did not want her to inspect the place unannounced. Do we
really want landlords to be snooping around our windows, listening for
fans, and parading through our homes?

It can't be much fun for landlords either.

I, for one, would rather leave grow-op investigations to the police.