Tenants Can Rate Their Ontario Landlords On This New Website & People Are Spilling The Tea
Looking for a new place in Ontario's rental market can be a daunting experience, especially when you don't know much about the landlord or property management company.
From restaurants to hotels, online reviews play a critical role in the decision-making process. However, for renters, there aren't many platforms for rating Ontario landlords. But a new one has just popped up, and it has already racked up 2,000 reviews in two weeks.
A new website called "Rate My Landlord" has recently been launched by two Ontario residents, and 1,000 of the reviews came from Ontario, its co-founder told Narcity.
"It just seems super bizarre that... landlords are running these businesses where we're giving away a large portion of our monthly income, and we [had] no ability to check any sort of crowdsourced review," they said.
The founder of the platform, who does not have a software development background, reached out to developers on Reddit a year ago to see if anyone would be interested in helping to create the platform.
This eventually led to them and their partner creating a website, which was launched two weeks ago. The platform is entirely volunteer-based, with no plans to make a profit. However, there may be a need to accept donations in the future to cover website costs, the co-founder said.
Tenants can anonymously give anywhere from one to five stars to their landlords or property management companies based on these factors:
- Health and Safety
- Respect
- Tenant Privacy
- Repair
- Rental Stability
"Our moderation policy states that we will remove or modify any discrimination or defamatory remarks," the co-founder told Narcity in an email and clarified that all tenants are required to follow the website's rules for posting or risk having their reviews removed.
Many tenants have already popped off on the website, and some of the reviews were steamy.
"SCUM. This man is an absolute villain. He will coerce you into paying extra fees, ignore you when you need help and berate you when he feels you're in the wrong," one person wrote about a landlord in Toronto. "DO NOT RENT FROM HIM."
"Bed bugs, rats, cockroaches. They won’t replace damaged items. The building smells like dead animals," one person wrote about a building in Scarborough. "Instead of getting someone to remove them, they left poison around the building and let the animals die and left them in the walls."
However, there were some highly positive reviews too.
"Rented from Rob for a few years. An excellent guy who charges a very fair rent amount. He is very quick with responses and deals with issues around the building very quickly. As a student renting for the first time, I am glad that Rob did not take advantage of my situation," someone wrote a landlord in Peterborough.
"Rate My Landlord" is now open to all provinces in Canada and recently became available in the U.S. and Australia.
Average rent and annual change in average rent by postal code in the city of Toronto for March 2022. 