Help a young couple seek justice against landlord

We are two 29-year-old artists living and working in Montreal since the start of the pandemic. We moved to Montreal to access the rich dynamic culture and to thrive in a safe creative art community. We both struggle with mental illness. One having a diagnosis of Bipolar 2, an anxiety disorder and depression and the other struggles with major depression, anxiety and addiction. Our need to feel safe is paramount to our recovery and overall well-being. Like many, we have worked diligently to meet our basic needs and support each other during some unprecedented times, specifically a pandemic. As I am sure many of us can attest to, it has been a struggle to find balanced mental health challenges and we are grateful to say that up until last week, we felt like we were not only surviving but thriving in this uncharted territory. We used this time to set-up and start our home based business, and we were really finding momentum leading into the fall and winter months. 


We moved into 5462 Ave Du Parc in February 2021. We found the apartment online, liked the area, and it was in our budget, so we decided to sign a sublease for 6 months which would expire with the original lease’s agreement in July 2021. During this time, we were in discussion with the Landlord, who offered us some of his other apartments in the building including a larger space downstairs he was renovating and said would be ready for us as early as August. He also offered to hire us and pay us in cash to fix it up ourselves, but we were much too busy working on our new business endeavors. 


As the sub lease ended, we began to discuss a new lease with the Landlord. We were having issues with the apartment, no hot water in the kitchen, a non-functioning oven, and there was a giant wall in the middle of a very tiny kitchen that made it difficult to move around. We also saw some cockroaches and noticed that there were many holes that had been duct taped up all over the corners of the apartment. The lock on the front door was broken which we attempted and failed to fix. 


That day, we heard loud banging at the door and much yelling. I was alarmed and when I opened the door there was a man there saying the landlord had sent him to remove the tenant from this apartment. He showed us the paperwork and it was made out to the last lease holder whose name was on the previous lease. I told him that was not us, that we had been renting directly and paying our landlord via etransfer for the past 4 months. I went on to explain that we didn’t have a lease as we were waiting for the renovations to be finished in the new apartment on the first floor. We called the police in the hopes that they could help but they said because it was a court order there was nothing they could do. 


By then there were 4 police officers, 2 Bailiffs, and 5 movers in our living room and the movers were throwing all our things into garbage bags including our winter coats and our shoes, our business equipment, everything. Much of it was damaged as it was removed. Our 2 cats were as terrified as were we. The whole scene felt surreal and violating as it unfolded.


The Bailiff claimed there had been 2 eviction notices delivered. We had not received any, nor did we have anything on our door or in our mailbox that hinted at a court hearing or eviction notice. We were in a state of disbelief.


It took us 6 hours of constant moving to get our things out and once the moving truck left the remainder of our most important things were strewn in garbage bags and we were left homeless sitting on the curb crying. It was humiliating, shocking and incredibly heartbreaking to lose everything and have nowhere to go. We were left without winter shoes only in flip flops, we had one winter coat between us, and we had cuts and bruises from moving so fast to save our things. 


Thankfully our neighbors came to our aid and began to share their horror stories from this particular landlord and bailiff. They empathized with us and took in our valuables and food that we could not take with us. Someone donated a pair of shoes and an extra coat but one of us was still left in flip flops.


Because no one we knew could take us in, and we had no family here we were told by police that a homeless shelter had been arranged for us that evening. 


We were lucky because a spot for couples opened up, we were thankful that we didn’t have to separate. The staff at the Cap Care Shelter in Hochelaga were amazing. We were fed and given a bed but looking around I was devastated to see people just like us there crying, or just laying still in the military style beds for hours. A staff member informed me that some of them had been there over a year because they had to be isolated when covid hit. (**I highly recommend donating to this shelter this winter.)


Unlike many people at the shelter and in similar situations, we had a safety net and were put up at an Airbnb by a family member. It is a very expensive temporary solution. 


Our things were taken to a storage facility far from us and we were unable to access them because the storage unit is in the previous tenant’s name! We have been told that in 2 months it will be disposed of permanently. Unable to get a hold of the previous tenant, we contacted the city and legal aid, as well as the moving company and the bailiff office for a solution on how to get our belongings.


We are not sure what will happen to us next, nor the tenants who remain in the building as well as the many other renters in Montreal who struggle with the rent increases and the evictions happening during this ongoing pandemic. As covid financial support dries up and the winter becomes more bitter there are people being removed from their homes and they, like us, have ended up homeless.


Finding a new apartment will be challenging without a reference from our last dwelling. We are at a loss as to how to move forward.