Hello Gentle People:

 It is hell week in Quebec, Canada. The week leading up to the first of July when thousands of basically poor people shift out of shoddy rental apartments and into even worse apartments. If you are trying to find an apartment for rent at a reasonable rate, forget it. Landlords have stopped renting and Condominiums are for sale everywhere. Condos today are basically apartments guarded by private real estate Brokers who filter people with the ability to pay higher monthly rates from those who can barely scratch a living on welfare or who exist on small old age pensions. Brokers do this class discrimination in exchange for a finders fee from the Condo owner and Brokers are the reason rental rates have jumped out of reach for thousands of people.

 Almost directly because of brokers there is a quiet revolution going on where a certain group of renters, with help from the police, are becoming hostile towards small scale landlords.
These renters sign a lease for a year and then, for one reason or another, refuse to pay two or three months rent. They know for certain that the police will not remove them from the apartment they are occupying and they also know that the police will send the unsuspecting landlord to an arbitration court. It is in the court house the landlord discovers he or she is responsible for opening a file and finding a lawyer to either help remove the tenant from the property or force the tenant to pay money owed; but only after both tenant and landlord face a judge. The landlord may, if the judge rules in his favour, be able to collect past due rent from a tenant who left without paying but only if that person can be found! To find lost tenants a landlord has to hire a detective specializing in finding lost tenants. Meanwhile, the lost tenant may suddenly reappear and claim the few days remaining on his lease. Even though said tenant cancelled his Hydro Electric contract in the middle of the final month and has not paid rent for two months, he now wants to re-enter the apartment to collect a few of his things. Things such as door knobs, light bulbs, plastic electric plug shields and basically anything that is not nailed down. He or she may even do a little damage and claim the damage was not their fault and it is the reason they refused to pay rent. If the landlord complains, the tenant quickly phones the police and claims the landlord is a threat to his or her person. They explain to the police officer entering the scene that all they were trying to do is move out of the apartment and the landlord intimidated them. Of course the officer will create a police report and now the landlord has a police file and begins to seriously consider converting his property to Condos and hiring a Broker to sell his renovated Condominium; thus leaving the poorest of the poor out on the street. Satan must love hell week?!