What Recourse?

Some shudder at the very prospect of owning rental properties, being at the mercy of negligent renters who think nothing of trashing a property owned by someone else, feeling entitled to do so because of the rent they pay, resentful that they must depend on others to allow them a place to live, something that sucks the greater balance of their disposable income, so that they will never, ever be in a position to save toward property ownership of their own.

And then, the dreary discoveries when tenants finally move out -- of all the remedial work that must be undertaken before the disrespected private property in the temporary hands of renters who neglect the most basic responsibility to clean up after themselves, take a minimum of care of things daily used. Until the work has been done to bring the property up to snuff so it can be rented out to another unreliable renter.

The frustration, the expense of it, the anger and the helplessness.

Of course there are those landlords who rent out substandard property at rental costs temptingly below the average to those who cannot afford to live elsewhere. And whose complaints to the property owner of conditions requiring alteration for comfort and for safety reasons. Complaints that may go unanswered.

In the instance of a dreadful house fire in Thurso, Quebec recently, home renters informed their landlord of an electrical problem.

And it does represent a problem when the electricity fails altogether. Natasha Fortin and her husband Martin Leger discovered that the electricity on the main floor of their rental home had failed, leaving them with power only to the kitchen stove and a small lamp in the living room. They left messages for the home owner, and heard nothing back.

Martin Leger asked a friend who is an electrician to have a quick inspection, and he was advised to get the landlord to schedule an appointment with the electrical-repair service that the friend worked for. They contacted the landlord accordingly and again, there was no response. Then, last week, fire tore through the home.

It killed eight-year-old Rebecca Leger, and three-year-old Amanda Price, and six people living in the house were hospitalized. The fire had started at 4:30 a.m. The parents were able to rescue four of the children of their blended family, including the baby, away from the burning home. Even after the fire the house owner did not respond.