A landlord accused of evicting tenants from her East Vancouver house to make big bucks during the Olympics said she would remove an Internet ad offering Games-time rentals.
"That was a mistake, I totally overlooked that," said Mariana Gerenska, who co-owns 916 East 11th Avenue with her husband. "We had been exploring the market before that, we had more time."
An ad for the nine-room house on SportEventsRentMyHouse.com said rent is $11,900 per week for a two-week minimum or $34,000 for all of February and March. Gerenska, a learning developer with the B.C. Public Service Agency in Victoria, said she had just one inquiry from a prospective renter. She may still try to rent space if the house isn't full of relatives visiting from Europe to witness her childbirth.
Simon Fraser University graduate student Susan Brown has paid $580 a month since July on a seven-month term. She said she received a Nov. 23 notice to vacate by Jan. 31. The form said the unit will be "occupied by the landlord or the landlord's spouse or a close family member (father, mother or child) of the landlord of the landlord's spouse."
Tenant Sam Campbell, who also received an eviction notice, discovered the ad online and said he used a false identity to make an email inquiry about Olympic rentals. He said Gerenska quoted $4,800 for one floor of the house for a week. Gerenska said she does not have a $106 civic short-term rental permit. As of Monday, only 95 had been sold by city hall. An April 9 report to city council estimated it would issue at least 1,000 permits to landlords renting to Olympic visitors because of hotel room scarcity.
Bob Mackin reports for 24 Hours Vancouver.
Scumlords
The owners of this house evicted a family with a two year old toddler and new born from the basement suite. The family were told that the city had forced the Gerenska's to eveicted them because the suite was illegal and that they would have to renovate. Three weeks after the family moved out new tenanents moved in; no renovations had happened. The new tenenats were paying several hundred dollars more than the family that had been evicted.
I'm sure this happens quite often; there are a lot of slumlords looking to cash in on the Olympics.
Provincial government scumlords
So, why does a $78000 a year BC provincial government Human Resources employee, which Mariana Gerenska is (see http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/ocg/pa/08_09/Detailed_Schedule_Pymts.pdf go to page 55) , feel it's okay to break the law here in Vancouver and not bother to get a permit to rent her home for the Olympics?
And why are BC provincial government employees adding to the homeless problem by doing this?
She's obviously lying about changing her mind because she answered the interested response by quoting a price on an entire floor of the home.
Provincial government employees should obey the law in Vancouver. Or else stop insisting that street people obey the law. Why would they be allowed to have it both ways?
Landlord temptation
This landlord was definitely out of order but these global sport events always allow people with some spare accommodation to cash in because visitors won't pay the increased hotel prices. The city council should give some slack to locals because it's a "win win". Visitors get housed during the event and locals get rich!!!
Alfie
What about the people that used to live there? Doesn't that make it win-win-lose?