Photo of sleeping tenant in rental ad ‘blatant disrespect’ by Brampton landlord, rental watcher says

Brampton | Caledon | Mississauga | Ontario | Latest News |

By

Published April 10, 2024 at 4:10 pm

Renters are sharing their frustrations online after a landlord allegedly posted a photo of their sleeping tenant while advertising a rental online.

The photo started making the rounds on social media website Reddit last week after it was posted to the “SlumlordsCanada” discussion page and shows what appears to be a male tenant asleep in bed.

The advertisement is for a room for rent in Brampton for $500 per month, and appears to have been pulled from the buy-and-sell website Kijiji.

“I didn’t want to post this at first because of the blatant disrespect for the tenant but I think this just goes to show how wild these freak ‘landlords’ are right now,” reads a post by a group moderator. “It’s not even just about cost anymore. You will (have) zero rights, privacy or respect renting from these slumlords.”

Many users online were upset by the posting as Ontario landlords are required to give 24 hours notice before entering a rental.

By Wednesday the post appears to have been taken down, but not before users lashed out at the landlord.

“So does (the tenant) know he is being evicted so more than one person can share this room?” wrote one commenter on the post.

“I’m not surprised by this inhumane treatment,” wrote another.

Brampton is one of the toughest rental markets in Ontario and was ranked as having the 9th highest rent across Canada in March on Urbanation’s monthly rental price round-up.

The average monthly rent for one-bedroom units in March came in at $2,155 while two-bedroom apartments came down by 2.4 per cent to $2,398.

The city says it is taking action against problem landlords with Brampton’s Residential Rental Licensing pilot program (RRL) – a project designed to crackdown on illegal rentals and give the city more enforcement options when dealing with landlords and property standards complaints.

But that program has also seen pushback from some landlords who’ve said the costs of the program are excessive. The RRL program officially relaunched last week after it was temporarily paused.

insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising