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Meet the man bad tenants fear By the time The Evictor gets into the act, you can forget negotiation Vancouver Eviction Service 604-868-1160 Mike Roberts The Province Sunday, October 24, 2004
Whump! Whump! Whump! The Evictor pounds his fist against the door of a second-floor apartment on East Broadway. The battered door is plastered with legal orders and the top hinge is hanging away from the frame. "Is there anybody in there?" he shouts through the door. The static hiss of a television can be heard inside. And there's a smell -- stale sweat and marijuana must. "I've got a bad feeling about this. I don't know what we'll find in there," he says. The tenants, a young couple, have been living here for five years without incident. Two months ago, they stopped paying rent and changed the locks. "There's been no response to our requests for contact and no one's heard from them in at least a month," says The Evictor, as he pounds again at the door. "All right," he says. "Do it." A locksmith takes a drilling tool from his belt and bears down on the door. By the time The Evictor gets involved in a landlord-tenant dispute, there is no hope of a truce. One way or another, the wayward tenant is going. It's not a matter of if, just when and how. Out of a fear of retribution and a desire for anonymity in his work, he asks that his real name not be used. "Stephen" has been working on behalf of beleaguered landlords -- property management companies, foreign investors, regular folk who own mortgage helpers or investment rentals -- for 23 years. With the proliferation of secondary suites in the Lower Mainland and the recent closures of all but two and a half Residential Tenancy Branches in B.C. (prior to 2001, six agencies provided timely conflict resolution in landlord-tenant disputes), The Evictor has never been busier. Stephen founded Vancouver Eviction Services after working for 13 years as a sheriff's bailiff in Vancouver, forcibly evicting commercial and residential tenants and seizing their assets under court order. As a bailiff, he found landlord-tenant disputes are seldom black and white. He saw areas of grey where deals could be brokered between aggrieved parties: a day, a week or an extra month for a tenant, and less costly solutions for landlords, who can pay as much as $5,000 in court fees, bailiff services and the removal and storage of a residential tenant's possessions. The Evictor's services start at $600 and typically run around $800 to deal with a problematic tenant "People assume I'm a hired bully," says Stephen, a gregarious man in his late 40s who bears a passing resemblance to actor Alec Baldwin. "Nothing could be further from the truth." The Evictor, who acts as an agent for landlords within the legal confines of the Residential Tenancy Act, prefers persuasion and paperwork to a strong arm. "Once the paperwork starts flowing, tenants get the idea that it's coming to an end," he says. "There are a lot of ways to negotiate -- 98 per cent of the people I deal with take their options and nine times out of 10, I'm getting thank-yous because I'm getting [tenants] time, extra time the system wouldn't allow them. Most people just want to walk out with their head held high . . . and avoid a confrontation." The locksmith has drilled out the lock, and like an opening scene from TV's Law & Order, he steps aside to let The Evictor enter and execute the court order for possession. "Anyone home?" he asks. "We're coming in." The abandoned apartment is a filthy, stinking mess and there is much evidence of violence and drug use. A TV set sits on the floor casting an eerie, static-snow glow across the darkened room. There's a ratty sleeping bag on the living room floor, next to a shopping cart and a pile of closet doors. The walls are full of holes and the carcasses of electronic equipment lay scattered about. The bedroom door has been kicked in; rented movies lay in piles on the floor. The blinds are bent and broken, juice and pop bottles are stuffed with cigarette butts. Curiously, a glass-framed poster featuring a basket of fluffy kittens is undamaged. There's a picture of a pretty young woman on the bedside table, or what's left of it. There's a Narcotics Anonymous flyer on the floor and Alcoholics Anonymous tokens on top of the TV. "What a mess," shrugs Stephen. "Friggin' drugs, man." The Evictor returns to his car for a video camera while the locksmith secures the front door and windows. Linda Mix, a spokeswoman for The Tenants' Rights Action Coalition, describes Stephen and what he does as "sleazy." Vancouver Evictions Services is well known to her agency. "I've heard stories over the years of sleazy tactics," she says. "He's pretty slick. "He'll work with a landlord who may or may not be savvy enough with the Residential Tenancy Act to help get rid of tenants earlier than they normally would. Generally, once his services are engaged by landlords, tenants tend to move quickly." Mix says landlords should take their disputes with tenants to the Residential Tenancy Branch. "Yeah, the Residential Tenancy offices have reduced services drastically," she says. "But we still have legal processes . . . I just worry that this type of service will help expedite illegal evictions." But Jake Fry, whose 76-year-old mother-in-law is currently "on vacation" in Victoria while The Evictor deals with a "predatory psychopath" tenant in the basement of her Point Grey home, isn't too worried about The Evictor's methods. Fry says the tenant arrived in June and began "playing" his mother-in-law from the get-go. Slowly and methodically, the tenant negotiated the return of his damage deposit and his post-dated rent cheques, made questionable claims for "mysterious floods" and appliance failures and began getting increasingly abusive and threatening. The police were called in several times. "It got to the point where my mother-in-law just couldn't live in her house any more," says Fry. Fry and his family tried to take the "path of least resistance," pleading with the tenant, even paying him $1,500 to leave. "A week goes by and he doesn't move. We send letters: 'What's going on? We had an agreement.' He's like, 'F--- you! This is compensation for the stress you've put me under.' He's got this red face, his fists are clenched and he starts screaming abuse and threatening my life. He closes the door -- not gently -- and begins to savage the apartment, screaming that he's going to get me and my mother-in-law." The police, says Fry, were stymied. The Frys are going to court with Stephen as their advocate on Tuesday. "Horrible situation, best guy to deal with it," says Fry of The Evictor. Stephen is wrapping things up at the derelict suite on East Broadway. He's videotaped the apartment and its contents. He reflects on the dirty work that keeps him busy 14 hours a day. He says he's only been seriously assaulted once and is not afraid of confrontational tenants, although he won't deal with grow-ops or drug houses. "I tell them, 'This is me, this is what I do. You can work with me and I'll make sure your stuff is safe. Or you'll have an enforcement team -- the cops and the bailiffs -- down here.' " It's never dull, says The Evictor, and every day presents a new challenge. "You might as well unplug that TV," he says. "I don't think anyone's coming home to use it." © The Vancouver Province 2004 |
