canada rental-property british-columbia
Landlord refuses to do anything about tenants who do a lot of drugs
<p>If other tenants in a rental home (roommates) are breaking the law and the landlord has been informed but refuses to do anything about it, is the landlord breaking the law or does a tenant (who's not involved in the illegal activity) have any special power?</p>

<p>In particular if you move into a house and find the other tenants do a lot of drugs (and have photos/videos proving it) but most of the drugs are "light" such as marijuana. However they trash the house and make loud noise at 4am, house is filled with smoke, always intoxicated etc. </p>

<p>If relevant the tenants signed a lease saying they wouldn't do anything illegal. </p>

<p>Your landlord has an obligation to allow "quiet enjoyment" of the premises. Essentially this means that, unless they are damaging his or her property, the tenants are entited to act as though it were their own property.</p>

<p>Many people take drugs at home.</p>

<p>Between the tenants and the landlord this is not something the landlord is allowed to get involved in.</p>

<p>If you believe there is criminal activity going on, you can but are not obliged to report it to the police.</p>

<p>Your landlord is not a law enforcement official. When you think that a crime is taking place, inform the police.</p>

<p>Landlords themselves don't like to decide who has to be booted out from their premises, because then the offender can sue the landlord for unfair discrimination.</p>

<p>If you're having noise issues at 4am, most cities across North America generally have noise ordinances.  Again, it's not the landlord that has to enforce such ordinances, but the police.  I've lived in a low-rise 1b/1ba apartment building where an adjacent neighbour thought he was living in a "house", and had a home theatre system going up all night; the solution was to notify the police on multiple occasions, only after which the landlord would have the option to terminate the lease of the offenders, or face paying a fine to the city.  (The landlord office themselves suggested that I either have to call the police, or, if I want, they could terminate my own lease without a penalty, since they couldn't act on their own in the situation.)</p>

<p>Your options at this point would be to call the police in regards to the noise issues at 4am, and discuss with the landlord the option of moving out without a penalty since the provisions of your lease are not honoured.  Unfortunately, it's a bit unrealistic to expect and require that the every landlord will initiate any other action in the situation.</p>
