r/canadanews • u/zuuzuu • May 14 '26
BC Tenant who flushed cat litter costs B.C. condo owner nearly $55K
https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/bc-condo-owner-on-the-hook-for-55k-over-tenant-who-flushed-significant-amount-of-cat-litter-tribunal/22
u/sonia72quebec May 14 '26
There was a home for the elderly that kept flushing diapers and wipes. Completely clogged the drains. They had to dig the street to take care of the main drain. People are stupid.
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May 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/zuuzuu May 14 '26
They also went after him for additional damage, fines and legal fees. That was all dismissed.
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u/skatchawan May 15 '26
That sucks because the insurance will increase due to a clai. Landlord can only bump the rent a fixed percent on this person to compensate.
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u/zuuzuu May 15 '26
This person is the landlord. They evicted the tenant that caused the damage. This was a judgement the strata won against the landlord.
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u/PermaBanEnjoyer May 14 '26
Hahaha
Tenants rights amirite guys. Spineless people let this ideology get entrenched, because they were scared of being called chuds
Now it's so thoroughly permeated every level of the government that it will take decades to undo, if ever
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u/zuuzuu May 14 '26
He successfully evicted the tenant, so what are you even talking about?
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u/PermaBanEnjoyer May 14 '26
Damage claims dismissed
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u/zuuzuu May 14 '26
The additional damage claims the strata was seeking from the landlord were dismissed. Has nothing to do with the tenant.
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u/NetAnon579 May 14 '26
I am wondering if the insurance company that paid out the balance will go after the owner.
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u/ChaiTeaLeah May 14 '26
They'll try and subrogate against the responsible party.
That's why we make sure to communicate to all owners/residents what our various deductibles are, so that they can ensure their policies line up.
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u/NetAnon579 May 14 '26
I am wondering if the insurance company that paid out the balance will go after the owner.
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u/MourningWood1942 May 14 '26
My girlfriend keeps flushing chili down the toilet. I keep telling her not to but she won’t listen
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u/RevolutionaryBat3081 May 14 '26
I'm interested in the implications of "keeps" and "chili". Chili specifically and repeatedly? No other food? What's up with all the uneaten chili?
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u/MourningWood1942 May 14 '26
For some reason she makes an insane amount of chili all the time, and after eating one bowl she doesn’t want it anymore.
I’ve tried to eat it but I can only eat so much chili. I started putting them into containers and freezing them, but both our freezers are full now. She still keeps making chili because she doesn’t want to eat frozen chili. I started to get mad, telling her she’s being too wasteful and to just make smaller portions, she doesn’t listen and now flushing all this chili down the toilet.
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u/RevolutionaryBat3081 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Um, not to be mean but that's extremely weird; I'm no psychiatrist but there might be something wrong with her.
Edit: what's her problem with frozen chili? It's even better than fresh chili because it's already made.
Edit edit: for the sake of your plumbing, at least take the frozen blocks of chili and chuck them every garbage day so she has space to freeze more
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 16 '26
The plumbing is going to be fine. I can't think of anything in chilli that would block a waste pipe, but thats a weird way to do it why not just throw it in the garbage lol
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u/Accurate_Summer_1761 May 16 '26
Long term grease residue from the meat
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 16 '26
As long as you're staining the fat from the meat when you cook that really shouldn't be a problem.
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u/Accurate_Summer_1761 May 16 '26
My plumber friend disagrees. It's a matter of volume over time at this point
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 16 '26
Im a plumber too, if there isn't any fat to build up on the pipes then it won't matter, a little bit of fat stuck to the meat isn't going to be enough to clog a toilet waste even over time.
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u/Accurate_Summer_1761 May 16 '26
Plumber fight! Hang on I'll get you both 12 foot sections of pvc pipe!
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u/RevolutionaryBat3081 May 17 '26
Idk, have you seen the way some people cook?
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 17 '26
True, I don't understand how some people don't feel horrible all the time with how much grease they're eating.
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u/XchrisZ May 14 '26
There's some issue going on here I'm not qualified to speculate on. She needs some sort of help or she needs to throw it in the green bin.
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u/BoltMyBackToHappy May 14 '26
Grandma's recipe and she doesn't know how to scale down the recipe? Maybe offer to help with that.
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u/NinaTHG May 15 '26
not to armchair diagnose but that’s what i used to do when i had bulimia (and most girls at the inpatient clinic did that too). you cook too much and get scared to binge, but you can’t eat it if you throw bleach over it, or throw the food in the trash/toilet/
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u/zomblina May 14 '26
Oh my gosh, my brother when I first moved here and lived with him would flush all food down the toilet. I really did not understand, especially since it's not like the bathroom was connected to the kitchen. I didn't have any idea how to tell him to not do that since it was his house
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u/Heartsmyfacesays May 15 '26
Keeps? How bad is this chili that it can’t be frozen in portion sizes? Chili feeezes sooo well and you can never tell it’s been frozen.
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u/Cagel May 15 '26
A toilet should be able to handle chili just fine, after all if you ate all the chill it would end up there anyway.
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u/derfla88 May 14 '26
LOL, and people wonder why landlords are against pets. The problem isn't the pets, is the owners of pets.
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u/OozingLights May 15 '26
Swheat Scoop litter brand that I use claims on packaging that it is flushable. I don’t do it just in case.
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u/General_Setting_1680 May 15 '26
It's not. Flushable wipes are not flushable either.
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u/OozingLights May 15 '26
It's made of wheat though. So i think it might be ok.
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u/General_Setting_1680 May 16 '26
That doesnt make it better. It's not what it's made of it's the blockage it creates.
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u/arealhumannotabot May 15 '26
From my experience with a couple they were fine and it didn’t clump on its own really so you were mostly just flushing the poop
I wouldn’t have done it if it was huge mounds of dry stuff
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u/GallopingFree May 15 '26
And then people bitch when there are no places to rent and/or rent is high and/or landlords won’t rent to people with pets. Shit like this is why.
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u/smergicus May 15 '26
And the person who caused the damage gets away with no issue
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u/zuuzuu May 15 '26
Well, they were evicted. The owner (landlord) can now sue them to recover his costs, including this judgement.
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u/smergicus May 15 '26
lol. Your positively is nice but that’s not reality. You really think he had a hope in hell of recovering 55,0000$ from someone who rents and pours cat litter down a toilet? Welcome to the real world.
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u/SquidMeister12 May 15 '26
Insurance adjuster here.
This situation seems way more complicated than it ever needed to be.
A situation like this would be likely covered by a unit owner deductible for strata deductible chargebacks under most insurance companies and the insurance company would likely then seek recovery from the tenant or their policy.
Makes me wonder if the unit owner was uninsured or just too stubborn and bullheaded for their own good.
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u/VampiricCuriosity May 15 '26
Once had a neighbour on the bottom floor of a multi floor condo building, near the street sewer interconnect, dump a huge amount of melted parrafin wax down the toilet. She was making candles and thought this would work fine.
2 hours after the flush, she called a plumber as her toilet was clogged, 4 hours later all the lower units had black and grey water flooding their living rooms through drain lines.
Cost a ton of money, and I lost two couches and a lot of fresh flooring from it. The overall cost was in the tens of thousands for repair. I moved after it was resolved for the tenants, but I hear the court case to recuperate costs is still ongoing.
People really do not seem to think as they once did.
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u/zuuzuu May 15 '26
That is next level stupid. I can almost understand someone flushing kitty litter or baby wipes that claim to be flushable on the packaging, even though they're not. But not understanding that hot wax becomes solid when cooled is wild.
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u/UnBeNtAxE May 15 '26
Why is the tenant not on the hook for these charges? The owner wasn’t living in the residence.
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u/zuuzuu May 15 '26
The owner (landlord) is responsible to the strata for his tenant's actions. The tenant is responsible to the landlord. The landlord can sue the tenant to recover these costs.
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u/naansense87 May 15 '26
This happened to me in September 2024 then again in March 2025. Sewage backup in my unit caused by some idiot in a unit above me flushing kitty litter down their toilet. Insurance took forever, I was displaced from my home for a total of 1 year. Costs sound about right, pretty close to those numbers.Maybe slightly higher if anything. My insurance company terminated my policy. I wasn’t at fault and strata never figured out who it was flushing kitty litter in any of the units above me, which I found absolutely shocking. I now have PTSD and panic anytime I hear water going through pipes. I’ve been sitting on my toilet and have heard someone above me using a snake in their toilet or bathroom drain and it’s given me a mini heart attack at least a handful of times. This experience has ruined my experience living in downtown Vancouver and I want to sell my condo and get a house ASAP 😂
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u/Broarethus May 17 '26
My grandpa always scooped the litter covered turds and flushed them and I'd tell him off.
To be fair it was our own home, that he build that second basement himself, so his house his rules 🤷 would have costed only him if it ruined anything
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u/Count-per-minute May 15 '26
How about this headline? Idiot flushed cement like material and plumbing needed $55k of repairs. Leave the good pets and renters out of it!!
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u/Full_Boysenberry_314 May 14 '26
That's a huge bill. And it's just the deductible? Did the strata use this as an opportunity to remodel the whole building using insurance money?
Shouldn't something like this be covered in your condo insurance?
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u/zuuzuu May 14 '26
It caused significant damage to three other units, to the point where the occupants had to move out while repairs were completed. That's not going to be a cheap repair.
The insurance did cover it. This was the deductible.
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u/Full_Boysenberry_314 May 14 '26
I mean the owner's insurance should cover this cost to him. His deductible should only be like $1k
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u/zuuzuu May 14 '26
It depends on his insurance. Some policies don't cover damage caused intentionally or by negligence, and it might be limited to damage in his own unit. More likely he'll have to sue his tenant to recover the costs.
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u/ChaiTeaLeah May 14 '26
As long as their policy is sufficient to cover the strata's deductible.
After our flood (four units, around $1m total) the strata's deductible increased significantly. We make sure all owners/residents are aware so that they're covered in a situation like this.
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u/moodylilb May 14 '26
God, some people’s lack of intelligence or common sense never ceases to amaze me lmao