On December 12, 2024, we officially closed on the sale of
our home. It’s a moment of bittersweet relief—after 15
long months of fighting through an unbearable ordeal with
a nightmare tenant, and the Landlord and Tenant Board,
she's finally out and it's finally sold. But while there’s a
sense of closure, it also feels like grieving.

She stole so much from us—not just financially, but
emotionally and mentally. The stress was all-consuming,
robbing us of precious time we could have spent with our
kids and with each other. It’s devastating to think of how
much was taken from us just because she could, simply
because the system enabled her.

We’re so grateful this chapter is over, but we’re also angry
that it had to come to this. Selling this house wasn’t just
letting go of a property—it was letting go of the memories
and security it represented.

To everyone who stood by us through this, THANK YOU . Your support meant the world to us. And to anyone else
fighting the same broken system, know you’re not alone.

Goodbye, house. You deserved better. We all did.

We are Jason and
Lorinda Seward, this
is our story.

We launched this website in mid-June and
have had over 17,500 site visits. It is
abundantly clear that this issue is important to
a lot of people. Small landlords need to be
protected from deadbeat tenants who
weaponize the laws that are stacked in their
favour.

We are the owners of the property located at 734 Chemong Road, duplex here in Peterborough. On December 20,
2019, we entered into a lease agreement with our former tenant for the upper unit of our property.

For the first year of her tenancy, our tenant paid her rent on time, occasionally early, and we enjoyed a friendly
relationship. Since mid-2022 our tenant began paying her rent consistently late and often in instalments
throughout the month. As we understood the pandemic was hard for everyone, we wanted to be supportive and
understanding, so we never filed an N4, or made any issue with the rent being late.

On Sunday, September 10, 2023, our tenant, was arrested for assault with a weapon against one of her guests.
This assault took place in the unit. As a result of this incident, our tenant was ordered to vacate the property,
leaving behind her guests.

On September 12, 2023, our downstairs tenant advised us that one of the squatting guests attempted to change
the door code for the shared front door and in doing so, they broke the lock. Our downstairs tenants felt scared as
they were unable to lock their front door. Upon arriving to investigate, we noticed that the lock on her unit door
had been tampered with and broken as well. At that time, we replaced the locks and left a set of keys for the
tenant with her guests.

At this time our downstairs tenants further let us know that they had been feeling unsafe for a while. For one, they
advised us that over the previous months, the police had attended to something at the upstairs unit with regular
consistency. This was unsettling for them and their 2 young children. Additionally, despite being repeatedly asked
not to smoke because of the shared duct work, our tenant and her guests had been regularly smoking in the unit.

Through a Freedom of Information request with the Peterborough Police Service, we came to find out that the
police visited the unit occupied by this tenant 11 times between July 22, 2023, and September 26, 2023. The
ongoing police presence relating to the tenant and her guests created a volatile and unsafe living environment,
leading to the departure of our previous downstairs tenants, and preventing us from both re-renting the
downstairs unit and selling the property.

On September 18, 2023, our tenant notified us that she had suspended the hydro to the unit. Not only was this a
breach of her lease agreement but had the potential to cause further damage to our property. At the end of
September 2023, our downstairs tenants advised us that as a direct result of the actions of this tenant and her
guests, they would be looking for another place to live. Unfortunately, we lost good tenants who took care of their
unit and consistently paid rent on time.

At the end of September of 2023, we hired a paralegal, who applied for the eviction of this tenant and her guests
with the Landlord Tenant Board. We were absolutely shocked to learn that the average wait time for a landlord to
have their case heard at the Tribunal was 12 months! We were grateful that the Board accepted our application for
an expedited hearing, and we were given a hearing date of December 7, 2023. Still a little over 2 months from the
date we filed, but still better than one year.

On the hearing date, our tenant was represented, not by a licenced paralegal, but by her friend, who identified
herself as an employee of the Landlord Tenant Board. Despite not being a licenced legal professional, she spoke
on our tenants behalf and asked for an adjournment stating that the tenant had a bail hearing the next day to alter
her bail conditions which would allow her to enter back into the unit. With no request for proof of any of this, the
LTB Adjudicator allowed for this adjournment, which was rescheduled for January 29, 2024.

On November 16, 2023, our tenant filed a T2 application against us claiming that we illegally locked her out of her
apartment. On January 17, 2024, this T2 application was scheduled to be heard at the LTB. Our tenant asked for an
adjournment as her paperwork was not filled out correctly. After some discussion, the adjudicator granted this
adjournment and issued an order that the T2 application and our A2 application were to be heard separately. On
January 29, 2024, when we appeared before the board, the adjudicator that day, disregarded that order and
ordered that both applications be heard together on March 18, 2024.

On March 18, 2024, our hearing was once again deferred and on April 5, 2024, we finally had a hearing. Our
hearing was 6 hours, that is 6 hours just for us. During the hearing, it became evident that our tenant had some
sort of vendetta against us and has waged a campaign of harassment since that date. On May 28, 2024 our tenant
addressed our security camera saying “Fucking bitch, I’ll get you”, and she has proceeded to do just that.

During our eviction hearing on April 5, our tenant acknowledged that she pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon
and as of February 6, 2024, she was permitted to return to the property. During the hearing, she testified that she
was not living there, despite being legally able to do so.

On May 6, 2024, we received our final order. Our tenants T2 was dismissed, and she was ordered to pay $15,096
by May 31, 2024, or vacate the unit. On May 6, the day we received the order, despite not living in the residence
for almost 8 months, our tenant moved back in and it has been a nightmare ever since.

The house became a known drug house, with people coming and going, literally all hours of the day and night. On
May 10, 2024, Peterborough Police surrounded the house to execute an arrest warrant for someone who was
wanted for robbery with violence, failing to comply with probation and breach of recognizance. Police found him
hiding in a closet.

On May 14, 2024, we requested assistance from the Peterborough Police for a standby to execute a 24-hour
inspection notice at our rental property as we had deep concerns regarding safety, given our tenants documented
violent history and suspected drug activity on the premises. Two officers entered the premises with us, and we
began our inspection, room by room. Within approximately 5 minutes three occupants were arrested and the
officers in the house requested back up.

On May 31, 2024, the day our tenant was to pay or leave, she did neither. On June 3, 2024, we went to the Court
Enforcement Office, paid the $315 fee and registered our eviction. On June 4, four days AFTER her eviction date,
our tenant applied for and was granted, a stay by the LTB citing that the original LTB member had failed to
address some evidence. Her eviction was paused while we waited for a review hearing, to determine whether her
review should be granted.

She is now over $24,000 in arrears and has made no attempt to pay anything. She
acknowledged in the hearing on April 5, that she does not have the financial ability
to cover the rent. She is exploiting the system for no other reason than she can.

On June 5-6 our tenant loaded up a U-haul and vacated the unit, though she continued to allow her “guests” to
stay there. On Sunday June 9, 2024, we checked on our property to discover that our tenant and/or one of her
guests ripped the lock and cover off the breaker panel causing extensive damage, kicked in the door to the vacant
downstairs unit and stole tools and supplies that we kept down there. We called the police and our tenant
acknowledged that she ripped the cover off the breaker panel and pulled the lock right out of the wall, but had “no
idea” who kicked in the door and stole our property. On June 10, 2024, she was arrested and charged with
mischief.

On June 24 we received word from the neighbours that those occupants had packed up and left. We went over to
discover the door to the unit was wide open, all the contents of the unit had been removed and there was no one
there. We cleaned up the piles of garbage, drug paraphernalia and dog feces.

Her review hearing was August 29 and went about as expected. An hour and a half of her crying and carrying on
about how we are responsible for everything that is wrong in her life. We finally received our Order on October 31,
well past the LTB standard of 30-60 days. Predictably, she and her witness were found to be uncredible, her
request for review was denied and her stay of eviction was lifted.

Our ordeal lasted 14 MONTHS. She is currently over $24k in arrears of rent. She’s cost us over $16k in lost rent
from the downstairs unit. She did over $10k worth of damage and she’s cost us over $6k in legal fees. And we will
likely never see a dime of this.

AND THERE’S NOTHING WE CAN DO.

Our tenants complaints are frivolous,
vexatious, made in bad faith and an
abuse of process. On May 28, she
addressed our security camera and said
“Fucking Bitch. I’ll get you”, and she has
made it her mission to do just that. Her
actions have taken an unmeasurable toll
on our mental, physical and financial
well-being. The unbearable stress that
her actions have placed on us has deeply
impacted our ability to be present for our
children, our family, our friends and each
other. Her actions have put our financial
future in jeopardy, not only as we face
the inability to pay our mortgage, but
also the countless days that we have
taken off work as we navigate this
unprecedented level of stress

Thank-you to Ioanna Roumeliotis and the team at CBC’s The
National for this fantastic coverage.

Thank-you to Bill Hodgins from the Peterborough Examiner for
taking the time to speak to us about this important issue.

Thank-you to Weiting Bollu, founder of OpenRoom.ca for this
coverage and for all you do for struggling housing providers.

Huge thanks to Tricia Mason at Global News Peterborough for
helping to share our story and the plight that tens of thousands of
small housing providers in Ontario face!

Damages

Resources

Openroom enables informed rental decisions through access to tenancy court
orders and empowers small housing providers to operate compliant, respectful
rental businesses.

• Our original LTB order can be found here: Review Order can be found here:

openroom.ca

Small Ownership Landlords of Onatio is a volunteer coalition of 8,200+
independent Landlords spread out across the province of Ontario, Canada. It
started in the spring of 2020 as a result of the numerous issues small housing
providers were facing with the Landlord Tenant Board (LTB) of Ontario.

solo.ca

Please contact your local MPP and demand they make
changes to the Landlord and Tenant Board to protect
small landlords from deadbeat tenants.

Please ask your MPP to intervene on our behalf:

List of Ontario MPP's

How you can help