In August and only coincidentally, both my son and my girlfriend's daughter were looking for apartments in the city (not together, sigh....still waiting for a grandbaby, but I digress)
Anyway, our city has been experiencing a severe shortage of good rentable spaces, of various prices. On homes, there are rental bidding wars simply because they appeal to so many uses. Homes can be shared or used as a single family. The possibilities are endless. Lately I have been seeing rentals going for way over the asking price. When my son Skyler and Emily were looking at respective apartments, being young adults, they looked in other places rather than the Toronto Star or on line at www.viewit.ca They submitted what they wanted on Facebook; scoped Craigslist, etc. Both of these young people had their parents also pounding the pavement helping them out.
So, what happened? In sharing our plight about our kids search for a rental, we discovered that both of them had encountered "dream" sounding apartments. In my son's case, imagine, 1,200 square feet of open concept living, 2 car parking, gleaming hardwood floors, 5 appliances and 2 good sized bedrooms, all for $1,200.00. They even gave a location that was ideal, close to the subway for him to go to work.
In Emily's case, the apartment owner just wanted a lovely person to rent their space as they lived in the U.K. It was roughly around 800 square feet, close to downtown where she was going to school and the rent was really attractive. A deposit was required prior to seeing the property (????)
My son and I drove by the address that was given for his "dream" apartment; it was supposedly above a store on Donlands Avenue. When we arrived, we discovered that there wasn't even a 2nd storey on this place and the dream place was a sham.
The travesty of this story is that in both Emily's and Skyler's case, they had relatively savvy parents who know a scam when they hear one; but what of the young people or seniors who don't have someone looking out for them and they provide a deposit that is never seen again and don't have a place to live in? These scams have been around forever; in my younger days, a guy or gal would actually have a rental apartment that was priced too good to be true. There would be a line up of people providing deposits (mostly cash) and then you'd find out a day later they had taken off with all the deposits and the apartment was never theirs to rent in the first place.
I know I can't save the world from horrible people, but it's important that things like this are exposed so it won't happen to other people, especially those we love.
Cheryl Bower
www.CherylBower.com
