All Forum Posts by: Alison Cummins

@Calvin Ozanick,

Yep. That's why I was hoping there was a way to pretreat baseboards to prevent serious problems before they destroyed everything.

Update:

The people with the cat didn’t take it. I rented to a young lawyer who will be too busy for pets.

From feedback here and research elsewhere, carpets are the worst culprits. When the cat-owners toured I said they could bring their cat as long as they didn’t put down any rugs.

I have more than one goal for my property. One is to bring in enough money to live on. Another is to provide quality housing for my neighbourhood. Companion animals make people happy and I want my tenants to be happy. 

One of my tenants has been there for twenty-five years. She doesn’t pay much rent, but that’s fine. It’s her home.

My other tenants are young people with their first really nice pad—sometimes they are leaving home for the first time after completing a degree. They trust us to look after them and we do. 

Typical Montreal duplexes and triplexes here:

https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-did-montreal-get-those-twisty-deathtrap-stairs.html

Note the buildings with one door on the ground floor and three doors on the second floor. Those are 5-plexes. The ground floor doors and two of the second-floor doors lead directly into an apartment: each resident has a private door. The middle second-floor door opens on a staircase to the two apartments on the third floor. 

@Marc Winter

Yes and no. "Plex" can refer to layers or parts. 

A duplex is two floors, a triplex is three floors. That's the layers meaning.

Where we are, a 4-plex is most likely a duplex with each floor split into two apartments; a 5-plex would be a triplex with a full ground floor and two apartments on each of the upper floors (what we have); and a 6-plex would be a triplex with two apartments on each of the three floors. The n-plex is the parts meaning. 

Local usage may vary, but that's what it is around here. The typical urban housing stock is rows of purpose-built triplexes or duplexes. They are specifically designed for an owner who lives in the ground floor unit and pays the mortgage by renting out the other units. 

100 miles away from here in Ottawa, almost all housing stock is either apartment buildings or single-family homes. A "duplex" or "triplex" there is typically a single-family home that's been split up and repurposed. 

@Bjorn Ahlblad,

We live in Quebec. Landlords may not require deposits, period. We can require the first month's rent at the time of signing the lease but that's it. 

I don't grumble about tenant protection laws here because they kept the rents low when I was a tenant, which is how I could save money to buy the property. Also because rents were so low, the property was cheap and I could afford it. The value of the property has tripled since we bought in 2006 and once this unit is rented we'll have more than tripled the average rent. So I'm not complaining. 

Much of the housing stock here is duplexes and triplexes with a resident landlord (our situation). When you're living with your landlord you tend to be more careful. We haven't had a major issue with tenants yet. 

I like your suggestion to visit the prospective tenant's current apartment. I'd thought about it but you've confirmed it. 

@Jon Reed,

Yep, I'm aware that there will always be some damage from tenants and I can live with that. When we renovated the kitchen for the first time in about 40 years there was no special smell and we've ensured excellent ventilation with the reno.

My policy has been to either use cheap materials that can easily be replaced between tenants with minimal grumbling, or pay for durable, tenant-resistant materials. I don't want to lose sleep over an apartment. I violated my policy with this apartment because the woodwork was beautiful and intact.

Cat piss is a special case. Living with an unfixed tom would be like living with an unfixed skunk. The proposed cat is fixed so it's not that extreme, but I don't want to let it in if it's going to ruin the most beautiful feature of the apartment the first time it gets a urinary stone. @Jon Reed

Um, Zinsser BIN primer. Sigh.

Ah, that should be Zissner BIN primer.

I own and live in a pretty triplex with four rental units, built in 1928. 

One of my long-term tenants moved out. I installed new hardwood flooring in her unit and restored and shellacked the woodwork with the expectation of tripling the rent. So far the best applicant for the apartment is someone with a small dog (I can live with scratched floors)... and a cat. Two of my other tenants have cats and I'm not overly worried about them because they're clean and tidy, their floors aren't new and the woodwork is painted. If a cat pisses on the baseboards I expect them to be salvageable. If not I have scraps of baseboard to patch damaged spots. 

But in the new place, the floor is new and the baseboards are shellacked. Is there a way to prevent cat smells from stinking it up permanently? A young, healthy cat with a clean litter box won't piss everywhere, but young cats get old and healthy cats get sick. 

The prospective tenant has offered a pet deposit (it's illegal to require one in our jurisdiction). I could use that to pretreat the baseboards with ZIN primer if that made sense. 

Any other thoughts?