“B*tch, I’m outside”: Vancouver woman's rental experience turns into nightmare
A Vancouver woman is sharing the horrific experience she had with a potential landlord while trying to navigate Vancouver’s rental market.
After Kayla Brix applied for an apartment, a landlord demanded documentation not needed for tenancy, including her social insurance number and her previous landlord’s tax return. When she did not provide the documents, Brix was sent threatening messages by the landlord and was called the C-word numerous times.
This all happened as she was evicted in less than a month by another landlord who tried to forbid her from having any friends over. Her experience with two awful landlords in a row highlights the desperation within the Vancouver rental market and how tenants may look the other way on red flags just to get a roof over their heads.
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Brix’s search for a new home began on July 2, three days before her birthday, when Brix’s landlord of three years told her the suite would be used for family.
That’s when she began emailing “countless places.”
Thanks to a woman’s networking group on Facebook, she and her housemate found a spot, but it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. She got the keys from the landlord on July 31, though no tenancy agreement was provided for the rental.
“She tells us we are not allowed to have guests over for security reasons. I duly noted this but know that this is an illegal ask, so I disregarded [it].”
Brix said the landlord saw her friend come over to drop something off between July 31 and August 6 and said she and her roommate were confronted about it.
According to Brix, the landlord “accusingly asks us how many people are living in our suite. When I responded two, she then asks, ‘Are you sure?!'”
During Vancouver’s Pride weekend, Brix said another incident occurred with the landlord.
“My roommate and I head to our laneway because we do not smoke on the property, and she catches us on the way out and verbally tells us that she doesn’t want us to live here anymore, it’s her home, and she gets to decide who lives here.”
They were never given an eviction notice, but the quest for a new place began anew.
This is when things took a dark turn.
Landlord’s harassing messages prompt police report
Brix and her crew were now looking for places as a party of three. That was the first time they communicated with a man who identified himself as Edward Yadlos, who advertised a three-bedroom garden suite for $3,000 on Craigslist.
Brix noticed red flags quickly, but she pursued this one because she got so few responses on tenancy opportunities in Vancouver’s hot rental market.
The group applied on August 8 and viewed the suite on August 10.
“When we entered the suite, it was a damp atmosphere, and we noticed a lot of dehumidifiers and heaters in the unit,” Brix said
They also saw holes near the front and back entrances with gaps large enough for rodents to enter.
On August 12, the group received an application with credit check forms. They responded that they’d complete the documents once they received the landlord’s personal email since all communication up to this point had been done through Craigslist.
On August 13, they sent the completed forms to Yadlos.
On August 14, they received “berating” messages that the applications were not completed to his liking.
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“His application included asking for SIN and bank account numbers. We obviously left these blank.”
Brix told him that she was familiar with credit checks and no SIN was required. At this point, she wasn’t sure they wanted to continue the process.
On August 15, they exchanged some emails back and forth with Yadlos with concerns about being scammed.
“He then responded basically that he didn’t trust nor believe us and that he would not be renting to us.”
Brix told him the suite needed repairs and would report it to the city. Brix claims that Yadlos then got aggressive.
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“He used extremely harsh words, including calling me the C-word numerous times.”
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It got worse.
“This is also when he threatened to first send people to my home to ‘shut up my big stupid mouth of threats’ and that he had men to ‘take out the garbage,” then threatened the careers of my co-applicants as he claims to have friends in high places.”
Another email from Yadlos insulted Brix’s physical appearance and ended with, “Just go f**k off and die.”
Brix said that he also disparaged her co-applicants’ job titles.
“This is when I sent my final communication to him.”
Brix said she received his words as a physical threat and that she would call the Vancouver Police Department, which she did.
Daily Hive contacted the VPD, but they couldn’t provide additional details since an active investigation is underway.
On August 16, Brix called the Residential Tenancy Branch and lodged her complaints.
That’s when she realized Yadlos took things a step further, making a Craigslist post with Brix’s personal information, asking others not to rent to her.
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While that post has since been deleted, Brix is still worried about her personal information being shared. She also called the VPD again.
On August 17, she woke up to a missed call and had a voicemail with 5:04 am as the timestamp from a German phone number saying, “Hey b*tch, I’m outside your house.”
She called the VPD non-emergency line again and made another report.
On August 18, she received another harassing email, and she called the VPD and reported it again. She was finally able to talk to an officer.
“I genuinely feel terrified he has followed through on every threat he has made towards me, and I still am struggling to find affordable and suitable housing through this traumatic experience.”
@biggroovyjudy Replying to @brimmy Updates! #vancouverhousingmarket #vancouverhousing #vancouverlandlord #slumlord #slumlordsofbc ♬ original sound – k a y l a
A man with the same first and last name was also the subject of a 1989 human rights complaint in which a woman claimed she was refused a rental based on her race. An Edward Yadlos was also charged with failing to obey a court order in time.
Daily Hive has not confirmed whether these are the same person.
Landlord shares his perspective
We contacted Yadlos about Brix’s claims, and he responded with several emails. He refused to accept a phone call from Daily Hive.
Yadlos expressed that one of his main concerns was that the renters were attempting to defraud him. He also accused Brix and her group of being “grifters.”
Among the documents Yadlos requested was a copy of Brix’s previous landlord’s property taxes to prove her former landlord owned the house.
He wanted more information about Brix’s previous landlord and asked for a copy of their property taxes to prove that her former landlord owned her house. Brix didn’t want to bother her former landlord since it’s not in the BC government’s guidelines for starting a tenancy.
The website also states, “Landlords should avoid asking all applicants for their social
insurance number.”
We reached out to Brix’s old landlord to confirm Brix’s side of the story, and the landlord confirmed that Brix lived there and was a good tenant.
Yadlos also explained using the C-word.
“I got upset, and I called her the worst word I say to anyone [male or female] – c**t because if I have to deal with somebody for as long as I did like her and then she does this to me, I knew she was a c**t.”
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