Could it have been avoided?

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👩🏻 Top insight to share with you

Earlier this week, CBC reported that Landlord Ramanpreet Singh rented his Brampton townhouse to Tenant Amoldeep Kaur. Turns out, Ms. Kaur is a content creator on a very popular adult content site. She paid first and last months’ rent - and nothing else.

Ramnpreet is now owed over $23,000 and is still waiting to go to the Tribunals to get an order.

We knew about this case of repeat offender or “professional tenant” because there were already two cases against Amoldeep Kaur inside Openroom before Ramanpreet had rented to them. I made a short-form video on how one could have checked the order history of Amoldeep Kaur.

We shared this case with CBC for Journalist Mike Smee to investigate further. It's important that we continue to make noise at the grassroots level to reach mainstream media because there is definitely a problem. The problem of theft and getting away with it.

We all continue to ask: WHERE IS THE ACCOUNTABILITY?!

^ that’s me yelling into the void.

Reality of it is, I get several calls every month telling me about how they wish they had known about Openroom.ca before they rented to someone because they were already known for unpaid rent.

Every time I hear the words, my heart sinks because it shouldn’t be this way.

And so it is not surprising (at all) that in the last newsletter, we asked you to tell us what would help you most. The top two areas were tools to screen tenants better and helping you collect on unpaid rent.

The good news is that there are many screening tenant screening companies in the works right now and we'll share more with you to help them test what they’ve built.

The bad news is that you still need to be diligent because majority of the screening tools out there today does not integrate with Openroom’s data yet. Unless they are like SingleKey.com who lists Openroom on their website with permission from us because they tap into our search system, then please BE CAREFUL. Doublecheck by doing your own public record searches inside Openroom.ca.

If you’re a tenant reading this, you can always search for future landlords in our legal research service. You should be informed about who you’re renting from.

📚 New Educational Videos Launched in Openroom University

👉 Help Us with Research

Each time you answer, it helps us make more informed decision on what problems to solve and what we educate on, but more importantly, it shows the rental industry what’s top of mind from frontline voices.

📊 New Research Poll

You’ll be entered to win an Inoki Bathhouse - an elevated interpretation of baths. They are our latest Rewards Network partner! Helen and team run their operations out of Toronto. I have known her for many years before she started Inoki Bathhouse, which focuses on mental health and personal wellness. Plus, it also went viral on social media. I’m a proud friend 🥹!

OK time for the poll:

🎁 Winner of last research poll

Regarding the giveaway from the last newsletter: I asked Co-Founder Vishal to pick a random number. He selected 73. It turned out to be Johvonna M. who had messaged in to Openroom a year ago. I was curious and started browsing her website this week. I learned that she is a very talented engineer (her and her team built an Autonomous Beach Cleaning Device), huge on social impact (Introduce a Girl to Engineering), and speaks mandarin (I do too).

Wow, Openroom members continue to inspire me.

Cheers!

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.