
Last Friday, Phil Lam was awarded the Golden Cockroach—for the second year in a row. But this year, not only did Lam win the top prize, he also received all of the positions on the infamous Golden Cockroach podium.
The Key to the Ghetto Award and the Golden Cockroach Award, given to the best and worst student landlords respectively, is one of the better ideas to come out of the AMS in recent years and hopefully it will continue to be awarded. It would be more effective if the award was handed out earlier, though, perhaps before the winter break. By holding the awards just before the traditional house-hunting season, the Golden Cockroach would have a greater influence on students looking to sign a new lease.
Although the condition of 286 Queen Street—Lam’s Cockroach-winning house which graced the cover of last week’s Journal—and Lam’s other nominated properties are inexcusable, it’s unfortunate that students signed the lease in the first place. As we’ve stated in these pages on numerous occasions—there is no housing shortage. But that doesn’t stop Lam and other landlords from perpetuating this misinformation and intimidating students to sign sub-standard living spaces. Lam told the Journal by e-mail that he believes the service he offers is as good as any other landlord in Kingston, “It’s just that I have so many more apartments that there may well be complaints from a very small minority not reflective of the rest of my tenants.” If he has too many properties to ensure they are all being maintained to legal standards then he should consider scaling back so he can do his job—properly.
Peter Holmes, who was nominated for the Golden Cockroach last year, showed a vast improvement since then and it’s evident that he took the criticism as a serious message from students that it was time for a change. This year, he was nominated again—for the Key to the Ghetto.
Although landlords have a legal obligation to maintain their properties, students must also take responsibility to protect themselves against negligence. It’s important to know what the law is and to know what rights are guaranteed to you as tenants under the Residential Tenancies Act. Many landlords won’t initiate change without educated tenants who are willing to question or challenge them to enforce their legal rights. And Kingston’s property standards office can only respond if they receive a complaint.
Students need to empower themselves against bad landlords by taking advantage of the available resources and standing up for their rights as tenants. The student mindset that it’s OK to live in poor housing needs to change, and hopefully the continuation of the Golden Cockroach will remind landlords that they can’t treat students like second-class citizens. But we need to do our part too.
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