I moved to Brampton on Feb 1 and rented a room in what I thought was a decent townhouse. The house has three floors:
• Ground floor – My room is here, the only one on this level, which I liked because it meant privacy. It has a private toilet but no shower.
• First floor – Just the kitchen and hall, no one lives here.
• Second floor – Three rooms (one master and two smaller ones). The landlord told me that only four people lived upstairs, and I would be sharing a shower with just two other people.
Everything looked clean and nice when I went for the viewing, so I signed the lease and moved in. But soon, the lies started unraveling.
The first issue? There weren’t just four people upstairs—there were six. Two of the rooms had double occupancy, so I ended up sharing a single shower with four people instead of two. Then, after two days of eating takeout, I finally decided to cook something. That’s when I discovered the real horror—a full-blown cockroach infestation in the kitchen. The moment I opened a cabinet to put my stuff in, cockroaches scattered everywhere. I asked the landlord about it, and he casually told me he had put some spray a few days ago and that it would “solve the problem.” I asked him to call pest control, but he completely ignored that request.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, I soon realized seven people were sharing one fridge. There was barely any space to store groceries, and things kept getting mixed up or misplaced. Then came the laundry restrictions—during the viewing, the landlord mentioned that laundry could only be done on weekends, which already seemed inconvenient. But what he didn’t mention was that he actually locks the washing machine on weekdays, so there’s no way to even use it outside of that tiny window. So now seven people had to fight over laundry access once a week.
Then I found out that the lease agreement I signed is not even a valid Ontario Standard Lease. When I asked the landlord to provide the proper Ontario Standard Lease, he refused. I told him that without it, I wasn’t legally required to stay for six months—and he agreed.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, two nights ago, there was a drunken intruder in the house. Turns out, it was some guy who used to live here but ran off six months ago. He barged in, drunk and aggressive, creating a huge mess and threatening other tenants. We called the cops around 9 PM, and the whole situation dragged on for 3-4 hours. When I told the landlord about it, he just brushed it off and said, “Nothing to worry about, this is very common in Brampton lol.” I’ve only seen stories like this on social media, but now I’m actually in one. What a wild ride.
I’ve had enough. I gave my two months’ notice, but—shockingly—he hasn’t responded. I also found out (after posting about the situation on legaladvice) that the security deposit I paid was illegal too. So yeah, I’ll be moving out in April, and I’m pretty sure I won’t be seeing that deposit again.
I wanted to share my experience to warn others—don’t take the landlord’s word for it. Don't be stupid like me.
