Is another tenant living in your building driving you crazy? Are they making excessive noise? Leaving garbage out in the hallway? Are they dumping dirty water or flicking cigarette butts onto your balcony? For many renters, living alongside people who they may or may not get along with is a fact of life. But that doesn’t mean that you can do nothing and continue to wallow in misery. After all, tenants have a right to peaceful enjoyment of the property – meaning that they have a right to not be disturbed while living in a rental property. Here are a couple of ways to deal with any problems that arise with another tenant.
If there is another tenant that you are not getting along with, one of the first things you should do is to try to work things out. You can talk to or write to the person and voice your concerns politely. It’s not always the case that the person is aware of the impact of their actions on others.
The other person you should talk to is your landlord or property manager. One of the obligations that a landlord has under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) is to ensure that each tenant has peaceful enjoyment of the property. If the action of a tenant is depriving another tenant of their peaceful enjoyment, then it is up to the landlord to come up with a solution to the problem. To help your landlord or property manager come up with a solution, you can:
- talk to your landlord or property manager about the steps that they are taking to deal with the other tenant;
- make your complaint(s) to the landlord or property manager in writing; and
- if your landlord or property manager is attempting to deal with the problem, you can assist them by providing a written record of what has occurred with the other tenant.
One of the obligations that a landlord has under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) is to ensure that each tenant has peaceful enjoyment of the property.In most situations, problems with another tenant can be resolved between the two of you and/or with the help of your landlord or property manager. However, there are some situations where you may need to contact the police.
For example, if you believe that you are in danger, you should contact the police. You may want to write a letter to your landlord or property manager informing them that you are concerned for your safety. One of the obligations that a tenant has under the RTA is to not interfere with the rights of other tenants. If your rights are being interfered with, then you can inform the landlord of this interference in writing and request that the landlord take action against the other tenant.
If a tenant assaults or threatens to assault you or other tenants, then you should inform the landlord/property manager and police immediately. A landlord can serve a tenant with 24-hour notice to vacate if he or she assaults or threatens to assault other tenants. For more information about 24-hour notice, please see: http://www.landlordandtenant.org/notices/eviction-notice/.
For more information on general landlord and tenant law matters:
Laws for Landlords and Tenants in Alberta, http://www.landlordandtenant.org/
This column was produced with the generous support of the Alberta Real Estate Foundation.