Capital Furs

sup ottawa animal people

so fate is telling me i'm gonna move out sometime in the next 6 months, since last semester at univ coming up etc., assuming i fail nothing. january or june/july probly. it'd be wiser to delay it until i get a steady job (june, hopefully), but i have enough saved up for at least a semester and i also wish to avoid breakdowns and murderous rampages (january). so i dunno, but in every case, i want to make sure this is PERMANENT. preferably a bachelor apt. or somt.

so ya, since, reading, lotsa you here seem to have achieved this already, i was wondering if any you might have tips for moving out in ottawa, i.e., good or bad experiences, places to avoid, things to remember, obscure rental laws, things you should always keep, survival skills, etc. i plan on my own, but i wanna cover all my bases in every possible way; my single greatest fear is having to move back in after i leave. so anything you good citizens and old timers might happen to know, your experience, could be of GREAT value.

halp?

1) Good friends do not necessarily make good roommates.
2) Unless you share a bathroom or kitchen with your landlord, their child, spouse or parent, any 'No Pets' clause is immediatly void in your lease, even if you sign it.  They couldn't even kick you out with the police just for having pets.

ashes wrote:2) Unless you share a bathroom or kitchen with your landlord, their child, spouse or parent, any 'No Pets' clause is immediatly void in your lease, even if you sign it.  They couldn't even kick you out with the police just for having pets.

Really?  Any lease?

1)  Shop around a LOT for apartments
2)  Ask about leaking issues >.<
3)  Talk to existing tenets of the building
4)  Don't rely on another person financially.  Only get an apartment if you alone can afford rent.  This can avoid problems later if things go badly.

In Ontaro the Residential Tenancy Act says that any no pets clause is immediatly void.  However the RTA is not in action if you share a bathroom and or kitchen with your landlord, their spouse, children or parents.

It is actually a BITCH to legally evict someone.  You can't change the locks WITHOUT permission from the tenancy board of ontario, to do so without permission can result in a large fine.  So first, they gotta go and ask permission to boot you out and you can show up and defend yourself, if he says 'I said no pets', they'll be like 'Too bad.'.

Of course, you shouldn't be a DICK about it.  Don't sign your lease with a no pets clause and be like 'HAH!  I HAVE PETS ANYWAY!' they might find other reasons to evict you.  Or they might rent to someone else instead of you if you havn't signed a lease yet.

Also if your pet is damaging property or barking and bothering the neighbours or something else destructive, that's an entirely different issue.  If your animal is a distubance to other tenants they can evict you for the disturbance issue, but are legally required to give you 10 days to solve the problem first.

Ashes wrote:2) Unless you share a bathroom or kitchen with your landlord, their child, spouse or parent, any 'No Pets' clause is immediatly void in your lease, even if you sign it.  They couldn't even kick you out with the police just for having pets.

cool i heard that, wasn't sure tho. likely to come up, probly gonna get a cat/rat/degu(s) at some point

do you know of any easy quotable law/ruling for this?

Widontknow wrote:1)  Shop around a LOT for apartments
2)  Ask about leaking issues >.<
3)  Talk to existing tenets of the building
4)  Don't rely on another person financially.  Only get an apartment if you alone can afford rent.  This can avoid problems later if things go badly.

* takes notes *

thanks

so leaking issues, you say... sounds like a wonderful story. that has me wondering... to what extent are landlords obligated to divulge the apt's history and current state (i.e., leaks, bug problems, etc.)? i mean, are they legally obligated to proactively inform you of past or current problems (and of what severity), or are they legally obligated to tell of problems upon demand only, or are there any laws at all governing what they can sneak past you (past or present problems)? how much is the tenant responsible for, in terms of informing himself, before signing a lease? meaning, what if something turns out to be broken that he didn't see til after he's signed the lease, and didn't ask about? questions

If leaking occurs they are obliged to fix it and pay for any repairs and replace anything that was damaged.  Personal experience here :P.  Though how much of a fight it will be depends on the landlord.

They are fully obliged to disclose the apartment's history truthfully if you ask.  They do not have to tell you if you don't ask.

Other considerations you should have when looking at apartments:

- Age of building (some older places can be real dives, more expensive to keep heated/cooled in winter/summer)
- Age of major appliances (nothing like having a fridge go dead on you)
- Proximity to necessities (food/shopping/laundry/transit/work/etc)
- Extras included with rent (do you have to pay for water/hydro/cable/parking)

Like Wi said, shop around. If you can find a freshly rennovated unit, it's probably for the best. There's probably a renter's guide publication for ottawa where you can shop by area of the city pretty easily.

Survival skills for when you do move out:

- Clean up the place weekly, at the bare minimum. Anything less and things get out of control.
- Ordering in/eating out is *expensive* compared to cooking something yourself
- Man cannot live on ramen alone (and will probably get a heart attack from all the sodium! >.o)
- Keep in mind you're sharing walls/ceilings/floors with other people. Keep the noise down, wouldya?
- Don't destroy the place. Landlords get bitchy when you trash their investment.

That's all I got for now.

When viewing an apartment your thinking of moving into, check for water stains on the walls etc. It can be a sign of previous flooding problems and the like. Also, unless you are a smoker yourself, try to find a place that has not previously been rented by a smoker who smoked inside. The smell does linger and the tar will eventually bleed through even several coats of new paint unless the wall has been completely stripped and scrubbed.

Check to make sure any sort of hot water heater/water tank is near a drain of some sort. Having your water tank go out doesnt happen often but if it does happen, it makes for a hell of a lot of damage and mess to clean up if it does go, and depending on the severity can take months to a year + to fully repair.

Obviously, looking for a place that provides basics like utilities is ideal. A lot of the time, the accumulated bills for a place can be almost as daunting as the rent.

Asking about bugs is usually a good idea but a little caveat would be that often, they'll bullshit you on this one. Pretty much every apartment building has roaches, but whether or not they appear in your apartment is often up to you and how clean you keep the place. Don't leave food out, keep things like crackers and cereal (anything open) in a resealable container and keep the place (particularly the kitchen) clean.

If you do have to pay a utility (usually Hydro) check to see what kind of heat the apartment has. Many smaller apartments have baseboard heaters instead of central heat and that will drastically raise your hydro bill (to a point where you never end up turning them on, like I'm doing. It's a bit chilly in here, but the heat from the neighbours makes it reasonable.)

The costs of living alone end up being a lot higher than you'd originally expect. Food is expensive (especially since the prices on everything went up over the summer) and bills have a way of catching up with you, especially if you want TV/Phone/Internet though there are some lower-cost solutions.

You'll often find really affordable apartments in neighbourhoods that are less-than-desirable to live in. For example, for my one-bedroom apartment only costs $650/month. However, it's around the corner from a bad neighbourhood (Ottawa housing, don'cha know?). So it's not a terribly safe neighbourhood but it's affordable, close to transit and close to two malls (Bayshore and Lincoln Fields) so there's an up-side as well. It's also near a really beautiful park. The downside again is that the bad neighbourhood nearby tends to get unsafe as the sun goes down.

Neighbourhoods to be weary of (though not necessarily scared of) are:

West End: Ritchie, Draper, Ramsey/Dumaurier, and Penney.

East End: Macarthur, Vanier

South End: South Hunt Club, Heatherington

Centretown: Mechanicsville, Prince of Wales

Though some neighbourhoods aren't ideal, the price can be attractive, especially if it's your first time moving out and hey, desperate times and all that.

PS. You're a lot more likely to find a place by looking at Rental Companies' websites rather than at  the classifieds.