A news article recently noted demand in Canada for houses with suites has increased.
The increased demand, obviously, comes from the suite providing income to offset ballooning mortgage interest rates.
The article pointed out homeowners with a suite in the building may experience some conflicts from noise complaints and/or temperature differences.
The advice from one expert was to install sound proofing and separate temperature controls for secondary suites.
The article did not deal with the possibility the owner may find sharing the home with strangers unsuitable.
Nor did the article delve into the landlord-tenant relations that happen when renting a secondary suite in your home.
Let me tell you the experience my wife and I had with a secondary suite to illustrate the issues that may arise.
We bought a bungalow with a basement suite on Second Avenue Northeast where the Peacock Collegiate parking lot now sits.
We went from paying $90 a month plus utilities for a one-and-one- half storey house on Coteau Street to a $150 monthly mortgage payment on this bungalow within walking distance of work.
The $70 a month rent from the suite would offset the higher mortgage cost for us.
A presentable young man attending STI, now Sask Polytech, applied and we rented to him. He had two roommates —one attending Central Collegiate, one attending Riverview Collegiate.
About two weeks after he moved in my partner called me down to the basement. Lying on top of the furnace was a hash pipe. At least we thought that was what it was.
We took it to the police station where the item was identified as a hash pipe.
The police said they could not take action as the pipe was in a common area and the tenant could claim it was ours.
We had been wondering about the strange smelling cigarette smoke drifting from the basement suite.
We also noticed heavy visitor traffic to the suite during lunch hour. It was in and out traffic, seemingly by students.
It sure seemed odd to us. Why were they visiting in such numbers for such little time?
One day a few weeks later I received a phone call from Detective Stan Montgomery, who later became chief.
“Anybody home at your house?” he asked.
“Yes, Joyce, my wife is there. Why?” I replied.
“Tell her to be careful. We will be raiding the basement suite.”
I phoned her and told her what was happening.
A while later she phoned me, terrified.
Several men with rifles in hand had come into the back yard, grabbed a package from under the back step and drove off.
The police arrived minutes later.
It was a scary situation.
We learned later that a car was driving up and down in front of the police station all morning until an RCMP cruiser arrived.
In those days no drug bust in Moose Jaw was made unless an RCMP officer was along.
The point of this story is: be sure you know who you are renting to and know what your rights are if you need to kick them out.
Ron Walter can be reached at [email protected]
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
