I just met with a reporter and photographer for the Herald this morning regarding an upcoming article on rooming houses. The story should be in this Sunday August 24th’s paper.
It was a few weeks ago that a rooming house in North Calgary had a fire and two tenants died. It turns out the negligent landlord not only didn’t have working smoke detectors and most of the windows were nailed shut to keep people out. This tends to be the norm when dealing with landlords who have rooming houses, so the reporter was looking around to see if there was another end of the scale.
We just happened to fit the bill as we have established ourselves on the high end. They had just left a rooming house in the Mission area and were very happy to see ours. The Mission property had nine tenants, mold everywhere and apparently had not seen much upkeep in it’s life. Also the owner was using it for storag. What do you expect for $300 a month?
Our property on the other hand was recently renovated and painted, has only four tenants total, hard wired smoke detectors, windows that open, wireless internet, TV’s with cable in every bedroom and the common area and free laundry facilities. Of course, our properties were a bit more at $200 per week, but where would you rather stay?
So watch for the story and let me know what you think!
I look forward to the article, Bill. But as good news doesn’t make good copy because it doesn’t sell newspapers my cynical side says your rooming houses may not be reported in the articles. That would be most unfortunate.