Every profession has an occupational disease. I work for a Chinese newspaper in Canada, and my occupational disease is “always expecting something to happen”. Because of the number of hits required for each article, the daily conversation between editors and reporters in the small office was always something like.
“Was there a car accident on the Lions Gate Bridge? Only three cars crashed? That’s too few.”
“Is there a Chinese underground casino in a house in Richmond? It’s been shut down? There are naked women, great!”
Most of the time, there were no car accidents, no casino raids, no fires and no restaurant fights. My colleagues and I just sighed and went out to find “something”. Some people went to the police station, others went to the courtroom to wait for a hearing, and I went to the Residential Tenancy Branch – a place that the Chinese used to call “Tenancy Court”, located on the 4th floor of an office building.
Whenever I see a Chinese person with a sad face, waiting for a number in line with papers in hand, he or she is basically a landlord – in Canada, landlords have to wait a long time to apply for a hearing in a rental dispute. During this time, the tenant’s life is not affected in any way, so they rarely have to look sad, or even stoop to the rent court.
One day in February 2019, I caught Zhang, who had applied for a hearing, in the Rent Court.
Usually, the landlord, with the rental contract clutched in his hand, would first go to the counter to get a queue number, and then go to ask the officer on duty: which form should I fill out to apply for a hearing, and how should I fill out this form? Sister Zhang is clutching a cell phone in her hand, to the staff a mouth, is a trembling “My English is poor”, so I immediately rushed up, to her as a volunteer translator.
It turned out that Zhang was a mother who had purchased a property in Vancouver and was forced by the government’s “vacancy tax” to bring in a rogue Western tenant to live in her house without signing a contract.
I followed Zhang for a year and a half and witnessed what it was like to be evicted in Canada.
The 45 days of evicting tenants in Canada
1
The most expensive part of the cost of living in Vancouver is the house. The mortgage is expensive for those who have a house, and the rent is expensive for those who don’t. This is the absolute most expensive part of family expenses.
Because it is easy to get a home loan in Canada, most of the escort mothers who come from China have a suite. Sister Zhang, too, moved to buy a house as soon as she arrived in Vancouver, and once she did, she bought a detached house. Her detached house also comes with a “Legal Suite”, which is a suite with a separate kitchen, toilet and access door – which is legal to rent in the area.
In Vancouver, where prices are high, Sister Zhang always compares prices at supermarkets when she buys groceries, and never buys a white radish for $0.99/lb if it’s available for $0.66/lb. Under her careful calculation, the mother and daughter have three meals in abundance, and the monthly living expenses can still be controlled under $1,000. As long as there were no unexpected expenses, Zhang’s daughter would be able to finish college without any problems.
But at the end of 2018, a tax bill came in the mail that knocked Zhang unconscious: to curb the increasing number of Chinese people coming to Vancouver to speculate on real estate, the local government introduced the Speculation and Vacancy Tax, which stipulates that landlords with Canadian status can If a landlord has Canadian status, he or she is exempt from the tax on a primary residence. If a landlord does not have Canadian status (e.g., a tourist visa or a school visa), he or she must pay the vacancy tax even if the person lives in his or her own home. Moreover, the tax rate increases every year, from 0.5% of the house price in 2018 to 2% of the house price in 2019.
“Successful Chinese families with Canadian status usually have two or three sets of houses, but they pay less tax than the group of mothers without status. I sold my house in Beijing, I raised two swallowed money building in Vancouver”), can only hate to throw out the golden words: “The government is the same bad, just bad law is different!”
And those who only have a suite of no status to accompany the mother in order to avoid taxes, can only rush to find tenants to rent out their own house, and then take the children to rent someone else’s house to live.
An independent house in Vancouver, the assessed price starts at millions. Zhang’s house, 2018 was taken away from the 5,000 knife tax, and to 2019, you have to pay 20,000 knife – the house simply became a bill crusher, which has to buy how many years of cheap radish to save out of this tax? 20,000 yuan, the top mother and daughter living expenses for the whole year!
After studying Chinese newspapers and Chinese public websites (including the one I work for), Sister Zhang was surprised to find out that if she wanted to avoid the tax, she could do so as long as the house was “partially rented out” – that is, if she rented out the downstairs suite to Canadians for six months a year, she could avoid the tax for the whole year.
Not having hired a rental agent and not knowing how to write a lease contract, Zhang listened to her neighbors’ gossip in the community center. One Chinese neighbor gave her advice with all sincerity: “If you rent a house, don’t sign a contract, just take cash! In the past, when I rented out my house, I signed a lease contract, but when I wanted to take possession of the house early, the tenant refused to leave, and it took me six months to get him out. You don’t sign a contract, you rent month by month, and when you want the tenant to leave, just say so a month in advance!”
Sister Zhang was so impressed with this advice that she started sending out rental ads.
Once the ad was posted on the locals’ website, a tenant came to the door the next day, a construction worker who worked in the neighborhood. He was a tall Western man, dressed in gray work clothes, and told Zhang in heavily accented and slow English that his job was a seasonal one, so he only wanted to rent a house for three months, and that if his job was extended, he could rent it again at that time.
Sister Zhang gestured, “Do we have to sign a ‘paper’?” At that time, Sister Zhang could not say Contract or Agreement yet.
The Westerners immediately replied, “I have never read a book, and I have a headache when I read the words, so I will give you cash.” This really said Zhang’s heart – how can it be such a coincidence that Zhang did not want to sign a contract, want to receive cash, but the tenant also “do not sign a contract”, want to “pay cash”.
So, Zhang’s independent house suite was rented out for $1,000 a month in January 2019. She said in the WeChat group, other mothers are envious – when the tenant left, just rent out the suite for 3 months, earn 6,000 yuan rent, offset the 20,000 yuan tax, but also can continue to live in their own house, really cost-effective.
2
After the Western tenant had lived in the house for a while, Zhang was shocked when an accountant heard at a church fellowship meeting that she had not signed a contract with the tenant: “You have to sign a contract with the tenant, how can you get your vacancy tax exemption without a contract? What if the government asks you to provide a six-month rent contract? You still take cash, and do not give the tenant a receipt? Are you afraid that the tenant will sue you?
As soon as she got home, she rushed to find the tenant to sign a new contract and bought a receipt to give the tenant a receipt for the past rent. The contract did not have to be drafted, the government provided a uniform format text, downloaded and printed on the website, so that her daughter filled out the agreement between herself and the tenant, and Zhang went to the tenant to sign.
Unexpectedly, when Sister Zhang stumbled to make clear her request to sign the contract, the Western tenant immediately flipped out, and he said something to Sister Zhang, so fast and furious that Sister Zhang couldn’t even understand it, but only heard the word “force (forced).
Sister Zhang’s ears were buzzed by the roar, rushed to find translation software to translate, and then took the phone to the tenant to see, typed out a sentence: “The contract can better protect our rights ah, BC regulations, more than 30 days of the lease are to sign a contract.”
Unexpectedly, after reading this sentence, the Western tenant straightened his neck and yelled word for word: “I tell you, you don’t have the right to force me to sign a contract! I just don’t want to sign a contract! You Chinese are too much, your Chinese buying our house, leaving us with no place to live!”
“Don’t you want me to sign a contract to get the vacancy tax exemption? On what grounds? I just won’t sign! No!” Sister Zhang said the tenant, who claimed to have never read a book, must have read the newspaper, and when he yelled out “Speculation and Vacancy Tax”, it was very smooth.
Sister Zhang used voice translation software to “understand” this paragraph, the heart tumbled: “You do not have a house to rent a house to live, and I am a Chinese what has the relationship? Do you blame Chinese people for your own inability to buy a house?” Sister Zhang recalled that her daughter once mentioned that she had read in the newspaper that “the low-income class felt social injustice and resented the Chinese for raising the price of houses”, and she just thought it was the media moaning, but she never thought that there were really local people who hated the rich people from China so much.
The newspaper report Zhang’s daughter saw back then. (Photo by the author) A newspaper report that Zhang’s daughter saw back then. (Photo by the author)
Sister Zhang typed out a sentence: “If you don’t sign the contract, I’ll just have to ask you to move.”
“You against the law! I will sue you in the rent court! Sue you to death!” The tenant stared at me and threw out a sentence in low English, “You will lose money, lose a lot of money! You made a big mistake!”
Sister Zhang spent her days shopping for food and cooking to pick up her daughter, and had never come across so many complicated words like “eviction”. When she saw the tenant’s angry, aggressive body language, she just knew that she was in big trouble.
3
The next day, Zhang found out the phone number of the rent court and asked Yu’s wife to be the interpreter – since the tenant was suing the rent court, she had to know what the terms of the rent court were and why she couldn’t let the tenant sign the contract.
“He didn’t sign a contract when he moved in, can I ask him to sign a contract now?”
“You can’t force a tenant to sign a contract, it’s illegal for a landlord to force a tenant to sign a contract, a verbal contract is just as valid as a contract.”
“But, BC requires a written contract for all leases over 30 days ……”
Rent Court Infinite Repeat: “A landlord cannot force a tenant to sign a contract.”
“So we agreed to end the lease in 3 months, is this oral contract supported by the law? What if he doesn’t move out by then?”
The Tenancy Court replied, “An oral contract is treated as a contract without an end date.”
This statement made the two Chinese women look at each other like they were struck by lightning.
Sister Zhang was about to spit out a mouthful of blood – if this fierce Western tenant had been living in the suite since then, without a contract, without vacancy tax exemption, and with the right to stay, how were she and her daughter going to live? Could it be that as long as the tenant pays rent, he can always pass on his grandchildren, grandchildren, sell the house can not break the lease?
Helpless, the next month, Zhang could only continue to communicate with the tenant to “sign the contract”. The tenant went out every morning and came back at 7 p.m. It was hard to talk, but the tenant was still very arrogant. As soon as Sister Zhang talked about the contract, he slapped the table and hit the stool in anger: “The contract is not signed, Chinese people do not want to avoid vacancy tax, if you want to force me to move out, then you have to compensate me for one month’s rent!”
Sister Zhang timidly reminded him, “It was agreed at the beginning that you would only rent for 3 months, and you agreed to it yourself.”
“Who said I agreed?”
Sister Zhang sighed in her heart: “It’s over, it’s over, this tenant is like a roundworm of the rent court, did he eavesdrop on the reply from the rent court?
The good thing is that Zhang’s English level is really anxious, so the tenant finished yelling and sent a text message over to help her understand what she yelled: “I have lawful right profit one month free. If you offer me one month free, I will leave at 12 April. (I want to have one month free to live, if you let me live one month free, I move out on April 12)”
Sister Zhang couldn’t sit still in her own home, the thought of a fierce, unreasonable tenant downstairs, she couldn’t even walk without landing on her feet too heavily. She spent her days browsing the Internet, compiling a “Vancouver Chinese Lawyer Phone List” and a “Legal Aid Organizations List”, and called law firms every day. However, she soon found out that all legal aid is for tenants’ rights and landlords have to pay for their own lawyers.
Some of the agencies in BC that provide assistance to tenants (Photo by the author) Some of the agencies in BC that provide assistance to tenants (Photo by the author)
This is the number of agencies that provide assistance to landlords. Please compare the quantity and quality for yourself. (Photo by the author) This is a list of agencies that provide assistance to landlords. (Photo by the author)
After a few days of phone calls and delving into the law, Zhang made it clear – the process of evicting a tenant in BC is exceptionally complicated: in order for a landlord to break a rental agreement with a tenant, he or she must first apply for a hearing, and then make a statement at the hearing. If the judge (author’s note: actually Arbitrator, Zhang was wrong at the time) approves the landlord’s reason, an Order of Possession will be issued so that the landlord can have the right to enter his or her house. And get this order of possession, does not mean that the landlord can strut into the house itself, but also have to personally go to the Supreme Court (High Court) into a Writ of Possession (court order), transferred to the bailiff to “invite” the tenant out.
Seeing this pile of procedures written in English, Sister Zhang was a dumbfounded and regretted: If only there was a contract! The real estate agent could have gotten a possession order from the rent court ordering the tenant to move out and a repayment order from the rent court ordering the tenant to pay the rent in arrears, and the problem would have been solved without having to do the legwork herself.
But Zhang did not have a rental contract, so no one dared to take this lawsuit, and every lawyer she consulted only sent her a “Good luck”, leaving her in tears. She would like to turn back the clock, when not to recruit this unlucky tenant – no, better not to buy this unlucky house! What foreign houses are freehold, can be passed on to future generations, are a lie – here a house is a handful of fat leeks, the government is short of money to spend at any time to cut a handful, if the government thinks it is time to rescue the tenants, you can use the tax to force the owners to rent.
Even if the house is sold right now, the money in hand will have to be deducted from the vacancy tax before she can get out of Canada.
4
Zhang finally found a Chinese-speaking lawyer who could give her advice. The lawyer’s office was so shabby and old that Zhang would not have gone in if she were in China.
The lawyer cleared a place from the pile of documents and files and asked Sister Zhang to sit first. Waiting to read Zhang’s cell phone text message records, he said, “Since he wants one month’s rent free, this is part of the oral contract. He this is an Offer (Offer), you promise him a month free (Acceptance). In this way, you form a new oral contract, this new oral contract is evidence, if he enjoys a free month and does not leave, we can go to the rent court to litigate.”
The lawyer tore a note and also wrote down the phrase: “I offer you one month free on condition you move out at 12 April 2019.” and then asked Zhang to text the phrase back to the tenant.
Once Zhang’s sister’s text message was returned, the world went quiet. The tenant did not give rent in March, daily access is no longer a look of anger, the landlord-tenant peace with each other. Throughout March, Sister Zhang prayed day after day, hoping that the tenant would find conscience and find a place to move out on his own. The closer it got to April 12, the more earnest her prayers became, but no matter how much she prayed, even through the intercession of her Chinese brothers and sisters in church, the tenant showed no sign of moving out.
Sister Zhang thought that if she had a tenant as big as she was, she would want to rush into the apartment, throw his luggage out and change the locks, “Can’t I be the master of the house I bought?”
But really can not. My daughter told Zhang: “Why do we need to apply for a possession order? Because according to Canadian law, when you rent out a house, you give the tenant the right to live in the house, and the landlord can no longer enter the house. If the tenant is to be evicted, then the law must first be passed to remove the right of occupancy given to the tenant, and the court will declare that the landlord has the right to occupy the property. “The right to possession of the suite is now his, and if we throw his stuff out, he’ll call the police.”
Sister Zhang never let her daughter deal with the tenant as an interpreter; she was like an old hen fluttering her wings, rushing ahead even if her English was bad, shielding her daughter behind her back.
But when Zhang mentioned moving in April, the Western tenant was back in rage mode: “Who are you to make me move? The city is changing the law so that landlords who want to renovate and take back owner-occupancy have to give (tenants) three months – I want to enjoy three months free!”
Hearing the tenant threat so up-to-date, Zhang screamed: after giving 1 month free, she wants 3 months free after living there, so after giving 3 months free, won’t it be 3 years free then?
The dream of peaceful settlement and no lawsuit was shattered.
The good thing is, after praying late at night in and out of the lawyer’s office for 3 months, she has finished reading the BC Rent Act with Google Translate and downloaded countless cases. Now she at least knows that she should fill out a form and send out a 10-day notice as a landlord, telling the tenant that “you owe rent, so you have to move out within 10 days”; after sending out the notice, if the tenant continues not to pay rent and move out, she can apply to the Rent Court for a Hearing (hearing).
Zhang went to the Rent Court to pay the fee for the hearing, a check of the date, until July to have a hearing can be scheduled for her – this is why Westerners rogue tenants are so emboldened: “I live in your house, using your utilities, waiting for you to apply for a hearing. “
Court staff told Sister Zhang, this hearing notice to the landlord himself served on the tenant, but also to keep the evidence, otherwise, the hearing will not be held.
After holding her breath and sending the tenant the notice of hearing and a bunch of documents informing the tenant how the judicial process would go, Zhang received a condescending text message from the tenant: “I told you long ago that I want 3 months of free housing, and now there will be a hearing in July, so I don’t have to move out until July. I will be challening you at the hearing and you won’t win! There’s nothing you can do to make me move!”
In the church fellowship, a neighbor was also having a terrible headache evicting a tenant – after his Western tenant got divorced and his wife and kids moved out, he became a daily alcoholic, loud and rowdy, and was making a lot of noise in the house, and the landlord couldn’t get into the house to see what he was up to.
The neighbor’s situation is a little stronger than Zhang’s, at least there is a contract in hand. But the neighbor planned to go through the “finder” channel and shared an inspiring story of his own relatives with Sister Zhang.
His sister’s family, brother-in-law is a lawyer, sister as a housewife. Their house was rented to a Western tenant, who refused to move out when it was due, and the delay was 3 months, and they were about to spend Christmas in the house.
The brother-in-law wanted to solve the problem by legal means, and sent a Notice and an Application to the tenant, but to no avail. The tenant also turned up the heat and brightened the lights to make them more distressed.
The sister simply found a few street punks and said, “Give you all 20 knives, smash all the windows of this house, I am the owner, I do not call the police.
The punks gladly accepted, and the tenant went out, clang clang, all the glass of the house are smashed, the northwest wind to the inside of the whistling. The tenant took a look at the house is too cold to live in, they packed up their bags and moved out silently.
It is said that the lawyer brother-in-law’s faith in the law has since been shaken.
This story sounds wonderful, but it doesn’t apply to Sister Zhang – it’s a warm spring day in Vancouver, not to mention that if Sister Zhang dares to smash the window of the suite, the tenant will come up and smash Sister Zhang’s house to pieces.
5
The first thing you can do is to trust the law. The thick stack of rent court cases she read at night, one by one, jumped out to give her ideas.
A tenant, who sent harassing text messages and made harassing phone calls to the landlord and argued that she and the landlord were in a relationship, was ordered by the judge to “move out immediately,” and the judge said, “Even if you’re in a relationship, you can’t harass people like that.”
A tenant of a leasing company, hit and cursed the manager of the leasing company, when he was shown the documents, he slapped the manager on the back, and finally, the rent court decided to expedite the trial and threw the tenant out.
A tenant, who sprayed the landlord and other tenants with a watering hose from the garden, had an expedited hearing and was thrown out.
A tenant, squatting in the garden to repair a car without a license, the leasing agent came and advised him not to repair the car here, saying it was not safe, he called the leasing agent “H.A.”, and finally, the judge ruled directly that this constituted an insult and threw him out.
Sister Zhang inexplicably looked up what “H.A.” was, and later asked a Western neighbor to find out that it was a Canadian motorcycle gang called “Hells Angels”.
As she read on, Zhang seemed to understand the brain circuit of BC’s rent law.
It is indifferent and non-urgent for a tenant to owe the landlord rent. Although the landlord suffers a loss, but who told you are not vulnerable? You can’t throw the tenant out on the street, you can’t cut off water or electricity, you don’t have to expedite the hearing because people are more valuable than money and people are more valuable than houses.
But the landlord and tenant, in personal safety and human dignity is equal, if the tenant made to endanger the landlord’s life and safety of the part, then directly throw out no discussion, expedited trial, from the fast and strict!
The 45 days of eviction of tenants in Canada
Although the rent law favors the tenant, but the landlord is really violated by the tenant’s personal rights, the rent law is also not soft. When she found this “aggravating circumstances” provision, Zhang’s tears were falling down.
She was actually scolded by the tenant in the past two months, and every time she talked about the contract, the tenant said “your Chinese” and “rolling down to China”. And also move to say: “You are tourist, I am a citizen of Canada. When we stand on court, you will be forced to roll back your country!
Since “H.A.” is considered an insult, the tenant’s words are enough to constitute “verbally abusive” – the landlord was racially abused by the tenant in her own house. This is a violation of the landlord’s human dignity and involves obstructing the landlord’s personal safety.
The question is, how to get evidence?
Sister Zhang invited a well-respected Western neighbor, who used a translation software to give him a clear picture of the situation. The neighbor’s grandfather shot up: “I will be your witness!
So, Zhang asked the tenant to talk again about “when to move out” and told him, “This time I’ll bring my translator, my neighbor.”
The tenant grimaced and asked the neighbor, “Do you speak Chinese?”
The neighbor replied, “No, but I understood her needs.”
The tenant then completely ignored the old man. Once again, he accused the Chinese of buying the houses in Vancouver, speculating the prices and driving away the locals, getting more and more excited: “Here is not Richmond! Why your Chinese came here to evicting the local people?” (This is not Richmond, why you Chinese came to buy our house and evict the local people?) “
The old grandfather took out his cell phone and said to the tenant: “I will record you.
The tenant is probably also blood on the head, skimmed to the camera and said: “up to you.
This sentence is very critical, because in Canadian courts, video or audio evidence that is secretly recorded is invalid. Since the tenant said so, the old man sat next to him and continued to record. Probably long accustomed to the weak performance of Sister Zhang over the past few months, the tenant continued to slap the table and hit the bench, berating Chinese people for being rich and unkind, and when it came to the excitement, it also slipped out several Fxxk You, and finally cursed to the climax, a slamming door, and left.
The day after the interview, Zhang went straight to the rent service court, showing the video of the oldest neighbor, asking to change the court date and urgent hearing. She used Google Translate to put the voice: “I am in my house, I am humiliated and threatened, I feel very insecure, I am going into depression, I want to kill myself, I want to kill myself very much!”
Although the staff of the rental court has seen a lot of knowledge, but apparently never seen such a capable tenant, so immediately “Urgent cause (expedited hearing)”. A kind-hearted judge also came out and gave Zhang a Support service (similar to a psychological counseling center) hotline number, telling her: “Do not kill yourself, use your native language, talk to them, they will understand you.”
6
Next, Zhang began to work through the night to prepare for court, more serious than children doing their homework.
Because in Canada, it’s not a sure thing that if a tenant owes rent, the landlord will get a possession order. If the tenant has financial difficulties, the judge may give discretionary grace time; if the tenant points out that the house is defective, living here affects their health, then the landlord has to spend money to rectify – and the rent owed it, no more!
So the opportunity to go to court, only this once, can not convince the judge to support the eviction of tenants, Zhang really can not live.
The most crucial evidence, is the tenant’s cell phone text message screenshots, spilled cursing, promise a month of free rent to move out, shouting Chinese roll, all screenshots, are the evidence in court.
But how do you get the judge to see this evidence before the trial, so that the judge understands that their personal safety is threatened? The small amount of space on the rental court form could not fit Zhang’s thousands of words of statement (written with Google Translate) and dozens of screenshots of cell phone messages.
Luckily, Zhang found out that there is a portal to upload evidence online in advance. She just had to send a copy to the tenant as well. Although she did not know what the court’s definition of evidence was, Zhang had the bright idea to name her several thousand-word statement “Evidence Package” and uploaded it along with the screenshots of the text messages, then printed it out and sent it to the tenant at the same time.
The tenant opened the package and saw a large pile of printed documents, illustrated with text and a large pile of legal documents, and yelled downstairs, “Who made this computer work for you?”
That night, the tenant like a trapped beast in the downstairs storms late into the night, just like the biblical Samson with great strength, while roaring and hammering the wall, Zhang really worried that the house will collapse.
Finally, the hearing date came.
When the tenant appeared in court, he spoke much more politely and could not be seen to be the same person who had been ranting in front of Sister Zhang. The judge went through the evidence one by one and asked the tenant, “Is this evidence true?” The tenants all said, “No, it’s a lie.” When it came to the video evidence, the tenant balked: “The video is a lie, it’s edited, it’s not real, I don’t agree with the video as evidence!”
When it came to the final statement, Sister Zhang, with the help of Mrs. Yu, was about to stumble over her written statement again when the judge interrupted her: “We don’t have much time now, I want to leave it to the tenant and let him tell his reasons clearly.”
Mrs. Yu’s face turned white: “Oh no, we’ve lost the case, haven’t we? Is it because I didn’t translate well enough? The judge did not want to listen?”
So the Western tenant took the floor, and heatedly, upside-down, tossing and turning, saying: “Why don’t I have a house if I’m a worker? Why should a house in Canada be occupied by a foreigner? Why do I work so hard but I don’t have a house? I want the judge to give me 3 months grace, I want 3 months to move out ……
The judge waited patiently for the tenant to say nothing new before announcing: the court was adjourned and the verdict would be made on a later date.
Out of the courtroom, Zhang reassured Mrs. Yu with confidence: “I’m sure to win – a lawyer friend told me that whenever the judge lets a party say enough, it is intended to rule that he lost the case, let him finish his reasons, lest he come up with a new reason to appeal. “
7
Sure enough, two days later, a possession order was issued to Sister Zhang.
The judge wrote: The tenant lost the case, the tenant’s remarks were suspected of racial discrimination, and the landlord had the right to sue in a human rights court. The tenant must move out within three days and bear all the costs.
Sister Zhang was in tears. It turned out that the tenant’s words “you are a tourist and I am a citizen, so I will win” were just a bluff. From the beginning to the end, the judge did not ask Zhang “is not a tourist”.
A possession order was also issued to the tenant, who only said “I don’t believe this is true” and still refused to move – his credit had been broken into pieces anyway, and it didn’t matter what the record was, it was one more day.
Zhang used to speak English just enough to buy groceries, and when the possession order arrived, she drove herself to the High Court to exchange the court order, and then took the court order and went to ask the bailiff. The bailiff’s department also took out a form for Sister Zhang to fill out: did the tenant take drugs? Did the tenant have a gun in his possession? Does the tenant have a propensity for violence?
Sister Zhang filled out the form line by line – I don’t know when she started to know the words on these forms, but she didn’t even click on the translation software when filling out the form. Speaking slowly, she told the bailiff, “He was violent, he would threaten with violence, but he didn’t actually use violence.”
The bailiff told Zhang to leave the suite key and pay the 1,100-dollar execution fee: “If he changes the lock, we’ll pick the lock; if he attacks someone, we’ll subdue him by force; if he’s injured during the conflict, we’ll call him an ambulance; if he’s mentally ill, we’ll send him to a mental hospital’s- -If the execution fee generates extra, we will ask you to pay it again.”
At 6:00 a.m. on the third day, Zhang saw the bailiff’s car arrive, from which five large and lanky bailiffs came down as if they were about to make a police movie.
They took the key and opened the door. Sister Zhang fearfully waiting for the tenant and the bailiff to stir up trouble – in case of a conflict, then I’m afraid that she paid back the execution fee will be doubled.
But downstairs silence.
15 minutes later, the door opened, the tenant honestly pulled his suitcase and left, and Zhang never saw him again.
The bailiff came knocking on the door and said, “You can go home now.”
Unexpectedly, this protracted battle, 15 minutes to end.
Five bailiffs packed the tenant did not take the items on the curb, meaning: to take it, come and get it, not to take it or lose it.
Sister Zhang went downstairs, into the door, feeling like a lifetime ago.
The bones of the gangrene is gone, Sister Zhang feels that the world is wide open. When the bailiffs came, the tenant was blocked directly to the bed, the suite was so messy that people frowned. The table was sticky with ketchup, the kitchen was littered with food scraps, the floor was covered with waste paper, and the mirror was so spent that you couldn’t see the person. The tenant was living a scribbling life here, and the whole room was filled with an indefinable and strange smell.
Sister Zhang cleaned up while reading documents, there is a scrap of paper, the tenant applied for a department to help him find a job, there is a scrap of paper, an agency in the psychological detachment of the tenant – it turns out that he is unemployed, only to rely on the determined not to leave.
The Canadian government is so saintly, posting money to help these tenants, no job, no house, the poorer the more it makes sense. And the landlord wants to evict the tenant, every penny has to pay for itself. This lawsuit, which took 45 days, cost 1550 knives, plus the previously agreed free month of rent, Zhang lost a total of 4000 knives.
8
Last year, after I wrote out Zhang’s story and published it in the Chinese media, it exploded, not only completing my KPI for the month, but also pulling up the KPI for the second month. the Chinese circle of friends, rental agents turned, landlords turned, people who had suffered losses were turning. But unfortunately, everyone finally came to the conclusion that “Chinese houses can still only be rented to Chinese people, rented to foreigners for crying out loud.”
Another reader called in: “remind this escort mother to pay attention to safety, oh, in case the tenant dives back to do damage!”
Sister Zhang’s neighbor who believed that “smashing the glass tenant will go away” invited a group of “gang members” to bang on the drums outside his house every day, using all kinds of harassment methods, and finally also forced the tenant to move. Sister Zhang congratulated him when he was in pain: “Sister, you should go look at my house, every door is a hole, every wall is an eye, the toilet and kitchen sewer flue are blocked. These days, the people I hired are making a scene outside, and the tenants are drilling everywhere with electric drills at the head of the house. Now, I have to redecorate, more than 50,000 knives!”
The neighbor couldn’t go through the legal process of suing the alcoholic tenant, because I’m afraid that what the gangsters did would be a lot of dark information to shake out.
Sister Zhang is glad she trusted the law, but in Canada, a tenant can make a demon that the landlord could never think of.
One night in June, Zhang suddenly received a phone call from her neighbor outside. The Western neighbor lowered his voice and said, “I’ve called the police, your bad tenant is back! He’s walking down the street and ranting, yelling at your house: ‘I’m going to burn down the Chinese house tonight and no one will have a house to live in!'”
Sister Zhang was so frightened that she rushed to the police station. The receptionist told Zhang that the police had been sent to her house already, so Zhang rushed home again.
Half the street’s neighbors were standing on the lawn, talking around the police, saying, “How could this happen when our neighborhood is so peaceful and beautiful? This person has to be arrested!” The Hispanic neighbor who called the police exclaimed, “Our safety is being threatened and we are afraid to sleep at night!”
The two Hispanic policemen tried their best to explain, “We will go and control this person, please don’t worry, we will step up our patrol tonight.”
Zhang couldn’t help but feel angry: this tenant had lived in the house for months for nothing, and she didn’t make him pay for it or sue him in a human rights court, as the judge suggested, and then he threatened to burn the house down? Where did this hatred come from? Today the police control him, tomorrow he will still come, this house can still live?
Zhang rushed to the police, speaking in her original English accent, and said, “I want a Restraining Order!”
When the policeman heard the word “Restraining Order”, his face changed from a “comforting citizen” to a “serious conversation”: “I don’t have the authority to issue a Restraining Order. You need to apply to the ‘Justice of the Peace’ for a restraining order.”
(Editor’s note: Justice of the Peace (JP), also known as Justice of the Peace, is a government-appointed civil title that originated in England to maintain peace in the community, prevent illegal penalties, and handle some of the simpler legal proceedings.
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this process when Sister Zhang picked the night to study law (though she relied on Google Translate to see it), and she pointed out more seriously: “Restraining orders can be issued by the police, and so can JPs. If you don’t issue it to me, then you have to give me a written refusal, and you have to state in writing your reasons for not issuing this injunction.”
The policeman’s face was frozen and he didn’t say anything more.
Sister Zhang pointed to the neighbors on the lawn, who were talking in twos and threes, and said, “We don’t dare to go home, we don’t dare to sleep, and the restraining order is there to protect us. You don’t want to issue a restraining order, I know you are worried that there will be no one to testify to support you, I promise, at any time I will appear in court to testify for you. My neighbors, too, will testify for me.”
Zhang spoke with sincerity, thinking that if the police refused again, she would move a high stool from the house and stand up to give a speech to the neighbors. The person was forced to roll to make a petition, people are driven, but also no teacher ah.
The police replied: Wait, I’ll ask my superiors. Then went back to the car to make a phone call.
Sister Zhang stood on the lawn, head down and typed the speech of the belly – really shame to see the neighbors, are their own brain to take advantage of such a tenant over, so that a street can not be quiet. “Should I call my neighbors to call the CBC later, or should I call News 1130? Is there a mayor’s hotline in Canada?”
She even imagined that if the police turned around and left, she would take the baby and run to the police station and hit the floor, because the police station would be open all night anyway, and in case the house burned down, the police station would notify the fire department, which would be more timely.
I don’t know how long I waited, the police officer came back and told Sister Zhang: “Madam, this person will be arrested, he may be charged with a crime. During the charge, if he is paroled, you will get a restraining order prohibiting him from coming within 250 meters of your house. Any time he sees you and sees your family, he is to stay away immediately. Breaking this restraining order is a new crime.”
The police read aloud to the neighbors a verbal injunction, Sister Zhang basically did not understand, understood a “250 meters” – 250 meters, that the street is safe ah!
It was only after a long, long time that Sister Zhang understood that in Canada, the threat itself is a crime. The tenant dared to say “to burn the house”, that is suspected of the criminal law “threatening crime”.
The neighbors gradually dispersed, and the neighborhood was quiet again.
9
About a month later, a staff member of Victim Service called Sister Zhang and talked about this and that law, which she didn’t understand at all. She had to say into the phone, “I am Chinese, can a Chinese person speak to me?”
So, the caller really changed to a Chinese person. A gentle girl explained to her, “Ms. Zhang, you are a victim of a crime, and we need to give you financial compensation.”
In short, Sister Zhang needed to fill out a form and send it to her with what financial losses she had suffered.
Sister Zhang did not believe: why a person commits a crime, to this organization to compensate it, it will not be a Putian scammer, right? Sister Zhang hung up the phone decisively.
Unexpectedly, this gentle girl unyielding, at least 3 months of phone calls to Sister Zhang, during which a letter flew like a snowflake. Sister Zhang will doubtfully learn: Canada has a Crime Victim Assistance Act (Crime Victim Assistance Act), which provides that if there is a crime, the victim can apply for state compensation.
Sister Zhang still does not understand: what is the logic of this, the tenant threatened to burn the house, not the government threatened to burn the house ah?
The gentle girl could not say clearly, but in any case, she said over and over again: “This is the law in Canada, please make sure you fill out the form.”
Sister Zhang took the form, but couldn’t figure out what she had to lose, so she asked, “Does changing the locks count?”
“It counts.”
Listening to Sister Zhang search her guts on this side of the phone, the gentle girl inspired, “Have you been traumatized when you encountered this incident?”
Sister Zhang did not know if it was considered traumatic, she just kept thinking that if time was turned back, she would fly back and give herself a big slap on the face for buying a house, and then give herself a bigger slap for not knowing the law and renting. What she regrets most is that all these years she could only say “How much” and never learned English seriously. Sitting at home, she was forced to rent out her house by the vacancy tax, and fell straight into the pit of the rent law. She has been huddled in the comfort zone of speaking Chinese, thinking that being honest will keep her safe, which is like a three-year-old child crossing a downtown with gold, all based on luck. Just like a bamboo tube pouring beans, Zhang told the gentle girl together with these ruminating words, tears falling down.
The gentle girl is a final word: “Then you need psychological counseling assistance. Victims should not blame themselves. The crime does not choose the victim. I’ll fill out the form and you copy it.”
After another long time, last week, Zhang told me: “I received state compensation, shouted at me to take the cost of changing the locks to the account, and, to give me 24 hours of psychological counseling, 24 hours of legal services. I asked the counselor, it turns out that the counseling at least 250 yuan an hour! The counselor said I don’t have to pay a penny, just give her the file number and she’ll go to the state and get the money herself.”
I asked, “So do you go to counseling?”
Sister Zhang replied, “I’m not going, I’m going to catch up on my English now. One day I’m going to stand in court as a witness for the prosecution, and I’m going to tell this tenant: the Chinese don’t roll back, the Chinese only let people who commit crimes roll to jail.”
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