Every record is a story

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📊 Research: Request for Your Help

Our friends at Unconventional Wisdom are interested in understanding people’s experiences making a claim in travel insurance. Their focus is on fairness and transparency during the claims process.

psst. We’ll throw in two $50 Tim Horton’s gift cards. You’ll be eligible for the draw if you fill it out by Fri. March 20th, 2026. Coffee on us!

👩🏻 Top insight to share with you

Over the last 3 years, we have spoken to thousands of you about your experiences in residential tenancy tribunals and upper courts. In the majority of cases, like those filed at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, it's the landlord who initiates the claim against the tenant.

Many of you have already taken the next step after a ruling: filing a rental debt ledger to report the debt to the credit bureau (Equifax), where it stays on record for 6 years. That record follows a consumer debtor as it affects their ability to rent, borrow, and rebuild when the debt has not been paid back.

Some tenants may be repeat offenders who continuously don’t pay rent. However, there are tenants who are actually impacted by hard times in life and would like to tell their side of the story in a professional manner.

While public records themselves cannot be deleted from our search engine, we implemented the Tenant Consumer Statement, used for tenant screening purposes.

Who could submit a statement?

This is specifically for tenants who want to explain what led to a dispute.

• Provide context about a past rental situation

• Explain circumstances that led to a dispute, debt, or court order

• Highlight steps taken since the incident

• Debt has been paid off or settled

Every Consumer Statement is reviewed by someone on my team to ensure that it’s professional and aims to reflect the individual submitting it in the best of light.

Who sees the statement?

Any person in the public searching a tenant’s name within Public Record Search by a tenant’s name will now see more of the full picture, if a consumer statement exists, not just a court order in isolation.

We believe a fairer rental ecosystem starts with transparency for everyone.

Know someone whose record deserves context? Please pass this newsletter along.

🎁 Community Member Appreciation

Thank you to those who responded to the last research question in the newsletter. #27 was randomly generated by ChatGPT this week to win a set of tea baths from Inoki Bathhouse!

Congratulations to long time newsletter reader Janice A. from British Columbia! Janice and I have been exchanging emails over the last 2 years. She’s shared lots of knowledge about the BC rental market with me. 

I’m still on a search to learn more about British Columbia so if you know a realtor from BC, please introduce me to them!

Feel free to reply back to any of my emails with feedback or suggestions for future editions. It’ll come straight into my inbox. I always aim to get back to as many people as I can when you message in.

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.