Nicole Byer (19) and her best friend Sasheer Zamata (18) were both accepted to Canadore College's Honours Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and would start their program in September 2022.

Nicole and Sasheer, both from Toronto, looked through Facebook Marketplace to try and find somewhere off-campus to live for the duration of their program. They knew it would be expensive to rent just the two of them, on top of the costs of tuition, so after several failed exchanges on prospective places to live, they reached out to an ad for a 4-bedroom house rental that indicated two other females were already living there as tenants. The rent was set at $600 per room, and the utilities would be split among the tenants. The ad mentioned no pets were allowed and they were seeking to fill the two vacant rooms immediately.

The owner of the house and landlord, James Smith, lives in Vancouver. His cousin, Frank Smith, a local realtor, agreed to do him a favour and act as his property manager - meaning, Frank would effectively be the liaison between all tenants and the landlord. Frank received a significant number of requests for the unit and decided he would conduct some preliminary screening to narrow down the potential tenants. He asked all interested parties to indicate why they were interested, whether they had pets, how they planned to pay rent, and when they were hoping to move in. Nicole and Sasheer each provided Frank the information requested and also indicated that their program started the last week of August, so they were hoping to move in around August 20th and not have to pay for the full month of rent each.

The pair scheduled in a time to see the rental unit. Upon arrival at the house, they met Frank and took a tour of the unit. They noticed that no other tenants appeared to live there, and things seemed in disarray. Frank, sensing their hesitation, mentioned that he would hire a cleaner to go through the unit before any new tenants moved in, and that there were several other interested parties in renting the unit and encouraged them to complete a Form 410 Rental Application so that the landlord could make a decision as to whom would be selected. They both completed the rental applications and submitted

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C. Donaldson | W23

Canadore College

them electronically to Frank. A week had gone by before Frank confirmed over e-mail that they were the selected tenants for an August 1 move in date and that they would be the principal occupants. They were asked to provide first and last month's rent for a total of $2400 per month, as well as postdated cheques for a total of 12 months. He assured them that he had two new tenants lined up who would pay their rent to Sasheer and Nicole directly, and that this was just a formality per the landlord's request. They were asked to sign a standard lease agreement for one year as the primary tenants, which confirmed the monthly rental rate of $2400 and that the tenants were responsible for all utilities (hydro, gas, water). Nicole and Sasheer complied and were given a set of keys to the house.

The pair decided to move into the house on Saturday, August 20th and when they got to the house, they saw Frank's car was in the driveway. When they entered the house, Frank was busy installing a ceiling fan in the bedroom Nicole was planning to stay in. He said it would be a few hours before he was finished and that he has been so busy with other listings that he could not complete all the repairs in time. Sasheer mentioned that the place seemed still in the same condition as it was when they came for the showing, to which he replied that it's the tenants' responsibility to ensure the place is clean.

They asked what the status was with the other female tenants, and he brushed them off saying they could request to sublet two of the bedrooms to other students in their program and it was their responsibility to do so. Although they were getting frustrated with Frank's responses, after he finished up with the ceiling fan, they were glad once he left and figured they would try and sort this out over the coming weeks. The pair went to work cleaning the house, unpacking, and settling in. Nicole took the