23 Year Old Me

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👩🏻 Top insight to share with you

If I could go back to 23 year-old Weiting, who bought her first rental property that had gone wrong, what would I tell her?

I’d tell her:

1. Heads up, you’re going to lose a lot of money and sleep because you’ll be trying to get a tenant evicted for non-payment of rent at 27.

2. It’s going to lead you to start a side project out of pure frustration at 28, called Openroom.ca, with your life-partner.

3. As a result of it, you’ll meet thousands of new friends on the internet, across Canada and spanning multiple countries.

I turned 32 this year. I’m definitely a lot wiser and I have a few wrinkles to prove it!

Today’s 32-year old Weiting running Openroom with her team is on a mission to ensure that there is transparency in the rental ecosystem, as well as the broader financial ecosystem.

I wish younger Weiting had the resources and tools to make more informed decisions.

I truly believe that some things should not be behind a gate or behind a paywall because it has the potential to help so many people.

So, here are purely 7 resources I wish I had that my team has prepared for you. Use, revise, share as you need to - but make sure to check for your jurisdiction for slight differences as rental laws differ depending on where you live.

1. Move-In / Move-Out Inspection Checklist

2. Pest Inspection Checklist - Before Exterminator Arrives

3. Evidence Package Preparation Template
   
   Mainly useful for Housing Providers:

4. 11-Pages Best Screening Techniques Checklist

5. Guarantor’s Agreement Template

6. Credit Reporting for Rent Payments - Lease Addendums for Advance Consent

7. Getting Ready for Eviction Day Preparation Template

At the end of the day, I want to be the most helpful, accessible, and beneficial friend to you. I’m your neighbour teaching rental rights, credit scores, & debt enforcement because I don’t want you to repeat my mistakes.

Openroom.ca is software, and Openroom as an entity also teaches, advocatees, and replies to your emails at 1 am in the morning.

All I ask for in return is that you continue to share the work we do at Openroom.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for trusting us to do the work we do. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Btw, the most entertaining version of me is on Instagram where I might bake 🍪, walk in circles, jump on a couch, or clone myself to share knowledge with you.

📚 From Our Community

In major cities across Ontario, like in Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Waterloo, new laws are emerging around how landlords can manage their properties when it comes to requesting a tenant to vacate for renovation purposes.

Our friend, Tony Miller (who has read every single Openroom newsletter over the last 2+ years) went to the Landlord and Tenant Board to request for orders related to RENOVICTIONS (Notice 13) in the region of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

The Municipal government states that landlords were doing this to get faster evictions, often in bad faith. So the question is, were landlords evicting tenants on the basis of a bad faith renovation?

Tony took the data, analyzed it, and put it into findings.

Tony Miller’s conclusions:

1. The city has not proven there is a “renovictions” problem. The data presented in this document does not support the conclusion that bad-faith evictions for repairs and renovations are widespread or systemic in Ottawa, or that they are significant drivers in the loss of affordable housing or homelessness.‍

2. The official LTB [Landlord Tenant Board] data shows bad-faith “renovictions” in Ottawa are very limited, and the city’s undocumented eviction claims are difficult to quantify and confirm and are unreliable for policy decision making.‍

3. The RTA [Residential Tenancies Act] regulations deter landlords from seeking evictions to perform repairs and renovations, and most landlords defer the work until their tenants move out naturally.

If you’re curious about “N13” tribunal orders, you can head to our Legal Research. Log in to search for “N13” to browse the hundreds of results tagged as so - including the ones Tony has analyzed.

👉 Action requested: Help us decide what to build next

p.s. welcome to the thousands of new readers joining from across Canada and even the United States.

Weiting Bollu
Mom, Rental Housing Provider, Rental Housing Advocate, Educator, and Openroom Co-Founder & CEO

Openroom collects public tenancy records and connects them to the broader financial credit system to help you make informed decisions on who to rent from and rent to.

We enable you to screen tenants or future landlords, help you report rental debt, give rewards to great residents, or bundle it all into BureauEdge.

We also educate about rental housing and we advocate for a more transparent and connected rental ecosystem to support both responsible housing providers and residents.