Hamilton tenants furious after landlord hikes laundry price to $20 per load

Now that his east Hamilton landlord has hiked the laundry up to $20 a load, Steve Taylor wonders what might be next.

I don't know if it's a game he's playing," Taylor said.

But he links this week's hike - to $10 each per wash and dry from $2.75 and $2, respectively - to the landlord's ongoing effort to move tenants out of 285 Melvin Ave.

It's wrong. It's absolutely wrong."

Family Properties issued tenants in the nine-storey building's roughly 60 units notices to clear out for renovations by the end of March.

Some have taken cash buyouts, but about 40 have stayed put, determined to remain in their longtime homes.

The owner wants to tear down walls between kitchens and living rooms to make the units open concept.

The property manager has told tenants the renovations, which also include electrical and plumbing work, are expected to take seven to 10 months.

Taylor, 62, a crane operator at National Steel Car, said he and his wife, Patti, pay $695 for their one-bedroom apartment.

One-bedrooms the landlord has already renovated in the building are going for twice as much.

The spectre of finding another place in Hamilton's skyrocketed open market, where rents easily crack $1,000 a month, is bad enough.

Oh, it would kill me," said Taylor, who hopes to retire in a couple of years.

But of more immediate concern are the laundry rates.

Taylor said he typically does three loads a week. At $2.75 a wash and $2 a dry, that worked out to about $14.25.

But, at $10 a pop for washes and dries, his laundry budget jumps to $60 a week.

Well, I won't be paying," said Taylor, who did his last load in the building on Sunday.

He figures he'll go to Lux Laundry, a brisk, six-minute walk southwest on Parkdale Avenue North.

There, it costs $3.25 for a double-load wash and $8.25 for a six-load wash. The dryer rate is 25 cents for five minutes.

Lux Laundry is Claudette Pratt's plan, too. But she doesn't drive, so she'll take a taxi.

I'm not paying 10 bucks for a wash and 10 for a dry," said Pratt, a 75-year-old pensioner.

Representatives of Family Properties haven't responded to The Spectator's requests for comment.

In 2019, 285 Melvin Apartments Limited bought the building for $6.84 million from the previous longtime owner.

Michael Klein, who's listed as president of 285 Melvin Apartments Limited on the sale documents, also leads the North York-based Family Properties.

Tenants in Toronto have also resisted Family Properties' efforts to clear them out of a townhouse complex.

The Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, which has offered advice to tenants at 285 Melvin Ave., called the laundry hike yet another step" to frustrate" them out of their units.

The specific increase to quadruple the cost of an essential service like laundry, in the middle of the pandemic, is a particularly cruel tactic, putting profits before people and creating more unnecessary hardship when folks are already struggling," staff lawyer Katie Remington said via email.

Landlords can issue N13 notices to vacate properties for extensive renovations that require building permits and must be empty to do the work.

There's no rent control between tenancies in Ontario. Once units are vacant, landlords increase rents as high as they like for future residents.

Tenant advocates have flagged renovictions as a growing problem in Hamilton that are pricing people out of the local market and threaten to make some homeless.

Last month, the city agreed to expand the scope of a $50,000 tenant defence fund," making renters facing N13 battles eligible for its grants.

But advocates are pressing council for stronger anti-renoviction measures.

Last year, the number of N13s and eviction applications filed with the Landlord and Tenant Board in Hamilton was 33. In 2012, the annual count was six.

Tenants at 285 Melvin Ave. were given until March 31 to leave. If residents don't vacate their units, the landlord must apply for a hearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board within 30 days of the move-out date.

No hearing has been set, said some tenants who called the provincial tribunal in recent days, which means Family Properties would have to start the N13 process over.

Laundry isn't the only issue at 285 Melvin Ave. Tenants have also clashed with their landlord over parking garages.

About a month ago, the property manager put locks on the garages and demanded proof of a rate agreement from the previous owner, they say.

They're putting all these kinds of pressures on us just to try and get us to go, and we're staying," Raymond Bonett said.

Bonett, 66, said he pays about $35 a month for his garage - one of seven at 285 Melvin Ave. - he has used for the 10 years he's lived in the building.

They put a lock on the door," he said, adding the property manager wanted to charge $150 a month.

But the tenants pushed back and staved off the hike.

Claudette Pratt said she managed to produce paperwork from 2003 that proved she had a rate agreement with the previous landlord for her garage.

They're trying to force our hand in leaving," said Pratt, who pays $935 for the two-bedroom unit she shared with her husband before he died last year.

But she, like the others, said she plans to stay put.

This laundry," Pratt said, it's another bump in the road."

Teviah Moro is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: tmoro@thespec.com