Spring Hope Food Drive

Landlords already offer a very important service to over one third of British Columbians by providing accommodations for those who choose to - or have no choice but to - rent their homes. ROMS BC and BCAOMA are proud to provide you and your tenants with an opportunity to facilitate giving to those who need our assistance in this fragile time of year. 

Many of our members have signed up their buildings for this inspiring event and food will be collected on March 21st. If you not registered for the Spring Hope food Drive and reside in Victoria, there is a bin for non-perishable food at the ROMS BC Office. For more details call us at 250. 382.6324 or toll free at 1.888.330.6707.

Bed Bugs - Heat Treatment vs. Pesticide Treatment

We are often asked about the difference between heat treatment and pesticide treatment. Here is a side by side comparison of a heat treatment, and a typical pesticide treatment for bed bugs:

Pesticide Treatment	Heat Treatment
30 Minute-2 hour process	6-8 hour process
Minuimum 2 services; potential 3 or more!	One Service
Bed Bug eggs not killed	100% eliminated
Bed Bugs in walls not killed	100% eliminated
Bed bugs in furniture not killed	100% eliminated
Bed Bugs in clutter not killed	100% eliminated
Intense preparation required by tenants	Minimal preparation required by tenants
Residual pesticides left in affected areas	No toxic chemicals used

 (Thank you to our friends at Assured Thermal Solutions of Vancouver for the statistics contained in this chart.)

 

Provincial Rental Housing Conference - Photos

ROMS BC hosted the first ever Provincial Rental Housing Conference on November 22nd and 23rd, and it was a great success. Over two days, delegates participated in workshops geared to the rental housing industry, attended an industry exhibition and ROMS BC 42^nd AGM all at the beautiful Westin Bear Mountain Golf Resort and Spa. 

 

Lisa Pynn from BC Assesment conducting her workshop: Your Rental Property Assesment - Digging Deeper.

Daryn Martiniuk from the Residential Tenancy Branch giving a presentation: What's New at the RTB.

 Mike Bush feeding a live colony of bedbugs provided by Victoria Pest Control after their workshop: Bedbugs - Stigma, Anatomy and Control.

 Carly Ludwar-Jellis - Member Service Manager at ROMS BC addressing the delegates at ROMS BC's 42nd AGM.

Scott Souder from the conference's platinum sponsor, RONA, speaking at the ROMS BC's 42nd AGM.

Why Some Shortcuts Are Not Worth It!

Landlords, like everyone else, are on the look out for the most efficient way to deal with their affairs. And in a perfect world, all of our shortcuts would lead directly to our destination. However we don’t live in a perfect work, so sometimes it is necessary to do extra work to avoid what could turn into a disaster.
 
When renting out a building - usually a house or multiplex - that has more than one unit where utilities are not included, it would seem efficient to have one of the tenants put the utilities in their own name, and have them collect the other share from the other tenants in the building. This would mean you would only have to deal with collecting the rent and no other money each month. This sounds great, but it opens you up for many other issues.
 
One potential disaster is that the utilities do not get paid by the tenant who is responsible for them, though the other tenants have been paying their share to the tenant who should be paying the bill. The end result is the utilities being cut off - and the tenants who paid their bills on time coming after you.
 
Or the opposite; the tenant who is responsible for utilities pays the full bill, but the other tenants decide that they’d rather not pay. Again, the tenant who paid the full utilities - or could only pay part of them seeing as they don’t have enough money - will be looking to you to fix the issue.
The warning to heed? Unless the utilities are billed for one specific unit only, do not require any of your tenants to have the utility bills in their name.