With endless backlogs at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), and resolution months away in most cases, more and more real estate agents and landlords are taking to social media just to shed light on the horrors of Toronto's rental system. 

A TikTok posted by real estate brokerage owner, Nazar Ajeely, shows the aftermath of a trashed house by a tenant who repeatedly failed to pay rent.

The shocking video — which has since amassed over 500k views — shows the property cluttered with garbage throughout the entire space, from the backyard, to the living room, to the hallway, and the kitchen. 

"Takes about one year to get the bad tenant out of your house, and you have to pay your mortgage payments, you have to pay the maintenance fee, property taxes," Ajeely says in the video. "Everything went up, you have to pay all that, you deal with all that and then have to deal with this garbage." 

@nazarajeely #in #canada #ontario #you #landlord needs a year to evixit a #badtenant who doesnt pay #rent #invest #investment #property #house #condo #realestate #reel #explore #tiktok #tiktokcanada #canadian #news #realestateinvesting #realestateinvestor #mississauga #oakville #milton #toronto ♬ original sound - Nazar 🧿 Ajeely - NAZAR HAMEED

"The tenant can simply move on to another property, do the same thing, and live rent-free," he continues. "The Landlord and Tenant Board, the government of Ontario, someone has to do something about this, it's unbelievable." 

Varun Sriskanda, who runs a property management company and is a member of the Board of Directors for Small Ownership Landlords of Ontario (SOLO) told blogTO that he's unfortunately seen plenty of similar videos shared by landlords in the province. 

"As a property manager, my team has been retained by landlords to take possession of three houses in the next month from tenants who have been very problematic. We expect those houses to have significant damage and we'll likely spend thousands in clean up and garbage removal," Sriskanda said. 

"This mainly happens because of excessive backlogs at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB). As soon as a landlord notices a property being damaged by a tenant or if that tenant stops paying rent the landlord can bring an application to the board. The problem is it doesn't matter how quick the landlord acts, they still have to wait 12 months for a decision to be made."

By the time a decision is made and a tenant is ordered to be evicted, Sriskanda said the damages to the property would have already destroyed the home and made it inhabitable for future tenants. 

As for the solution? Sriskanda urged that the LTB needs to maintain a list of "bad tenants" to prevent similar instances from happening. 

"Anyone who has a history of their landlord filing an application against them for damages or non-payment of rent should be given a hearing much earlier," he explained. "We need to stop letting problematic tenants ruin it for the majority of tenants in Ontario that pay rent on time and don't cause property damage." 

SOLO is even planning on protesting at Queen's Park on June 5 to address the backlogs that currently plague the LTB.

"We need to work closely with police and prosecutors to see that tenants that obtain housing using forged and fraudulent documents are criminally charged. We know the criminal code charges for falsifying those records exist - the police need training on when to apply it to landlord-tenant situations," Sriskanda explained.