Abusive tenant now an abusive ex-tenant, and threatening

[Ralph Noack]

Hey BP, Looking for your best bits of wisdom...

We have a triplex in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.

We successfully evicted our tenants about 2 weeks ago. The reason for the eviction was because they were smoking cigarettes & pot in our building. Both are legal here but in our lease, it states that its a non-smoking/vaping/drug-use building, which they signed. The eviction was to happen in March, but COVID  shut down the Landlord Tenant Board, meaning no hearings or evictions were taking place.

Fortunately, our tenants paid all their rents. Despite notification from the Sherriff's office that the Sherriff was coming on a certain day to remove the tenants, for some reason they did not open their mail & when the Sheriff came, it was a complete surprise to the tenant. I think he & his girlfriend were awoken by the knock on the door when the Sherriff arrived.

The summer was full of spiteful emails/texts from the tenant, while we did our best to keep a professional approach.

During the eviction, the tenant was verbally abusive toward the Sherriff, me & my wife. Quite nasty actually. Also threats of retaliation and even physical threats against me.

Kudos to the Sherriff's office. He came in and said "You have 15 minutes to pack an overnight bag & get yourself, your girlfriend & dog out of the premises & off of the property. You no longer have access to this property." Very efficient.

They came back 2 days later to retrieve their belongings.

We squared up with them with regards to any leftover money from the last month's rent. All supported with documentation, citing sections of the lease as to why they are getting less than what they expected. Also included an accounting of every payment that they made to us.

Since the night of them removing their belongings & not getting as much back as they hoped for, we have been inundated with over 100 texts; each one very rude, filled with insults at me & my wife, threats of violence, extremely lewd comments (most sexually degrading). They are so crass that I instructed my wife that she is not to read them.

It alternates between sending insults and demanding his money back.

Despite our detailed accounting explaining the numbers, in 100+ texts, he has not given any reason as to why he thinks he should get more money refunded nor stated an amount. Simply, "I want my money."

They were tenants for just over a year. It took all of 2 months before we started the eviction process. They were bad news from the start. Ontario, being a very tenant-friendly jurisdiction, allowed this to drag on for far too long, giving appeals at will. And of course, Covid didn't help either.

So now we're at 2 weeks since the eviction & I would call the endless barrage of rude texts to be harassment at the very least. But I need to move on. I'd like to show the apartment to potential new tenants. He's threatening to be on the road telling people what horrible landlords we are, reply to our ads & generally be a pain in the backside.

I"m 53. He's 26. He has mental health issues as well, as he has stated earlier. I know many people that would have beaten the crap out of this guy for the things he has said. I haven't thrown a fist since I was in grade 8.  I'm not stooping to his level. I've not even responded once to his ridiculous texts. I've always had a policy that I don't respond to abuse. Any time that we have tried logic, it has not been received well. So my hands are kinda tied.

Somehow I need to be able to set up that apartment with A) getting it cleaned & ready to rent, B) showing prospective tenants, & C) giving an apartment to someone that will feel safe there.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Anyone been through something similar? Any better outcome?

Thanks for any insights you may have.

Ralph Noack
Brantford, Ontario