

I’d give half a consideration to the landlord but they live thousands of km away from the rental unit and mom (they’re claiming is going to move in) is in a care facility.
They saw an opportunity to make cash and now they get what they get. Sounds like a good situation. Long term tenants. But these people needed more!

People are weird.
Had a neighbour who just left the basement door open and threw a bag of dog food on the floor for their dog and left for three weeks. I didn’t know what was going on or I’d have called someone - anyone. They were homeowners.
Over COVID I heard the apocryphal stories of support payments going out and landlords getting stiffed as they watched new TVs being delivered. I don’t believe a lot of that, though.
I do think that short of a serious effort to acquire, build, maintain, and expand public housing, small scale landlords are an important part of society. But they need a lot of controls and limits, and tenants likewise need to have reasonable respect for the property. It’s not always the case but I feel a small scale landlord is better positioned to be (and certainly isn’t always, as in this case) connected to the community than BlackRock.
It would be nice to have a public record for tenants and landlords to share warnings about bad behaviour, but that sort of thing gets corrupted so quickly.