Mental Health (LTB)

TSL-02327-19 (Re), 2019 CanLII 87558 (ON LTB)

4. The Landlord is a not-for-profit housing provider that provides affordable housing. The Landlord has partnerships with many agencies who serve different needs communities. These agencies refer their clients to the Landlord to live in the residential complex. The tenancy at issue arose from a partnership between the Landlord and a community agency that provides mental health supports to the Tenant.

5. The residential complex has “regular floors” and “safety floors”. The difference is that safety floors (i.e. floors 4 and 7) are reserved for residents who have a history of trauma and abuse. There are special expectations of residents of these floors, including that they are quiet, they do not have frequent guests and their guests are escorted in and out of the building. These expectations are meant to protect the residents’ sense of security on these floors.

6. The tenancy started in November, 2017. The Tenant lives on the 7th floor of the building, which is a safety floor.

7. Due to the Tenant’s pattern of disturbing behaviour, the Landlord served two N5 Notices of Termination upon the Tenant alleging substantial interference under section 64 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (the “Act”). At the hearing, the Landlord’s witnesses confirmed that the Tenant voided the first N5 Notice pursuant to section 64(3) of the Act. Therefore, in this order I only consider the allegations in the section N5 Notice, which has a termination date of January 3, 2019.

Tenant has created substantial interferences

8. Based on the Landlord’s uncontested evidence, I am satisfied on a balance of probabilities that the Tenant has substantially interfered with the reasonable enjoyment or lawful right, interest or privilege of the Landlord or another tenant by:

• Creating excessive noise in the rental unit and in the hallway of the 7th floor at all hours of the night by screaming, yelling and slamming walls and doors.

• Knocking on other tenants’ doors late at night and early in the morning looking for drugs and cigarettes.

• Having a guest enter the residential complex and attend her unit unescorted in the middle of the night.

• Forcing her way into another tenant’s unit without permission. The other tenant lives on the fourth floor, which is also a safety floor.

9. The Landlord’s witnesses testified that the Tenant’s behaviour has had a significant impact on other residents by making them feel scared, anxious, triggering symptoms of their own mental health issues and past traumatic experiences and making it difficult for residents to cope.

19. Finally, I am satisfied that the Landlord will experience undue hardship (through its residents) if the tenancy continues. Although it is clear that the Tenant suffers from mental health issues, her long-standing disruptive behaviour has and continues to negatively impact the mental health and reasonable enjoyment of other residents. It would not be fair or appropriate to expect the Landlord to provide endless accommodation for the Tenant’s disturbing behaviour when it profoundly affects the health and well-being of other residents who are also vulnerable and require accommodation.

SOL-07404-10 (Re), 2010 CanLII 65631 (ON LTB)

1. The Tenant is an admitted hoarder whose unit is filled waist high with clothes, food electronics, toys, trash and dirt. The things stored in the unit and the manner of the clutter make the unit a health and fire hazard. The unit emits an odour which is evident from the common area leading to the Tenant’s unit.

Evidence and submissions:

1. The Tenant resides in a unit provided to him under the auspices of the Brantford Community Mental Health department. The Department rents five units in the residential complex and allocates them to people with mental health issues and or who they support or assist under the CMHA program.

3. The Tenant admits that he has a hoarding problem. The Tenant testified that he is trying to get into a program with the St. Joseph Mental Health hospital that will enable him to get appropriate counselling and treatment to overcome the hoarding problem.

5. The Landlord is sceptical that the Tenant will get into the program at St. Joseph’s Mental Health hospital as there is a long waiting list and or that it is unlikely that the Tenant has been placed on the list as at the date of hearing this application.

6. The Landlord maintains that even if the Tenant does get into the program, it is unlikely that the Tenant would benefit from it to an extent that he overcomes the problem altogether or within a short period of time. The Landlord submitted to the Board a Hoarding Fact Sheet which contains an extract from a notable writer on compulsive hoarding (Dr. R. O. F Ph.D., Smith College, North Hampton, Mass.). The fact sheet states, among other things, that “Hoarding interventions are often complicated, costly and time consuming”.

7. The Landlord maintains that they have tried to help the Tenant by providing him with supportive interventions which include working with the Assertive Community Treatment Team (ACT) but to no avail as either the Tenant refuses to cooperate by denying that he is hoarding unnecessary “things”; that his “hoarding” is a problem that affects other people; or by refusing help from his mental health support workers to clean up the unit.

9. I find that the Tenant has a hoarding problem and that his conduct substantially interferes with the Landlord’s and the other tenants’ reasonable enjoyment of the residential complex and with the Landlord’s lawful right, privilege or interest.

10. According to the fact sheet submitted by the Landlord, hoarding is a legal, public and safety issue. Hoarding situations result in recurring unsafe conditions for both the individual and those living in close proximity to the affective persons. The literature on the subject of hoarding notes that hoarding creates impaired activities of daily living; unhealthy living conditions and unsafe living conditions.

12. The Tenant indicated at the hearing that the likelihood of losing his home has made him to be proactive in improving his living conditions. As a result, the Tenant is actively pursing treatment at St. Joseph’s hospital which will involve “one on one” counselling and interventions so as to get him to let go of the excessive “things” he has accumulated or tends to accumulate. The Tenant requested that he be allowed to work with the Landlord who should advise him on what he should get rid of in order to clean up and or de-clutter the unit. The Tenant made what appeared to me to be a sincere undertaking to cooperate with the Landlord.