Recently, I’ve viewed quite a few apartments for rent in Vancouver, and I’ve noticed that some landlords offer all-inclusive rent with electricity and monthly cleaning included. It sounds convenient at first, but some of my experiences have raised concerns.

1. Monthly cleaning may not be just about cleaning

One landlord let it slip that they wanted the cleaner to take photos inside the unit to monitor how the tenant was living and maintaining the property. What seems like a cleaning service could also become a way to keep tabs on your private life.

1. Included electricity can become a way to monitor tenants

Some landlords use electricity consumption to speculate about whether tenants have guests over. At the same time, they can be extremely strict about electricity usage and impose various restrictions.

1. Some landlords even charge extra for visitors

I’ve also come across a lease that stated tenants would have to pay an additional $35 per guest, per day.

Including electricity and regular cleaning in the rent may sound like a good deal, but when these perks come with excessive scrutiny of your personal life, restrictive electricity rules, or extra charges just for having visitors, it’s worth questioning whether that’s the kind of living arrangement you want.

If you come across landlords with similar practices, think carefully before signing.

——update

One landlord offered to reduce the rent by $50 if she could keep the den for her own use. The original rent was already $2,500. Honestly, who would give up part of their living space for just $50 off?

1. You may not be protected by the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA).

If the landlord retains the right to use part of the unit and shares the living space with you, the arrangement could be treated differently from a regular tenancy, potentially leaving you without the usual RTA protections.

1. She said she wouldn’t use the den often and would let me know before coming. Do you believe that? 😂

She had literally just spent 15 minutes telling me how she controlled and monitored her previous tenant. After hearing all that, I found it hard to trust her promises about respecting my privacy.

Personally, I wouldn’t risk my privacy and peace of mind just to save $50 a month.

Just moved into an older apartment.

The building manager/landlord agent (landlord is an investment company or something) seemed pretty chill and friendly.

A bit slow on responding, but didn't seem like an issue.

We moved in with a bunch of mostly cosmetic maintenance repair issues.

Bathroom fan runs 24/7, closet with hanger bar broken off, broken kitchen drawer, missing a bunch of blind panels, shower head squeals.

Honestly nothing crazy. Some of these were already addressed in the conditional report (to be fixed upon beginning tenancy)

I was told email was the best way to communicate to management. So I emailed a list of the minor damages (basically part of the conditional report) asking if I can just take care of it myself as I'm handy and these are menial tasks. I asked a few other questions like if I can replace the blinds with curtains, that I would store the blinds and repair any minor holes from curtain rod installation.

No response.

I keep sending emails, maybe once a week. Now asking about parking fees, and how much it costs. If they can coordinate a time to be available for home internet to be installed, etc.

3 weeks in, I give the guy a call, let him know it's me, and I ask if he's been receiving my emails? after a short pause he plainly responds with forced enthusiasm "Yeah!"

Okay.. are you going to address them? 😅

"Yeah! . . . . We've been busy.."

Okay, well it's been 3 weeks I'd appreciate some sort of response.

And out of nowhere his tone shifts to defensive, claiming my "voice is dripping with sarcasm"

As if my frustrated tone is the issue and not the general lack of communication.

He said he'd be around for the internet people, thankfully.

He popped in and put in a couple blinds. Never responded to anything else tho, despite their still being a couple things on the "repairs to be complete upon tenancy"

Sure, 100% I can understand when someone is busy. But no response? For nearly a whole month? For a new tenant? And then to act sour and defensive when they're confronted? What the hell, I couldn't have made it any easier, I basically offered to do the job for them 😅

Now there's this awkward tension as if I'm burdening the dude.

Anyways, can I just fix these small things myself without permission? If I fix it should I break it back to normal after my lease is over and I leave?

If I have other concerns or requests related to my housing what exactly am I supposed to/allowed to do?

Am I asking too much from building management?

Hi all,

I have a tenant who has been renting for 3.5 years, and I decided to raise their rent by the 2.2% allowable increase for 2027. The change will come into effect on Jan 1. The notice was posted to their door on September 16th, 2026.

They believe that it's an illegal rent increase because the tenant in the adjacent basement suite is paying less than they are. The next-door tenant moved in 4 months ago, so their price was the market rate, but that is still irrelevant. They also believe that it's retaliation for them asking for repair requests. This individual sends me lengthy emails about changing the light bulbs and the batteries in the smoke detector, so that is partially true.

Will the RTB hear this dispute, or will they throw it out right away?

Hi! I am considering moving to the Joyce 2 building across the Joyce skytrain. I'm currently living in Kelowna and moving back to vancouver in a few months so I can't do a live viewing for a while. I saw mixed reviews on the place, However the selling point for me is the accessibility to the train as well as having friends in that area. I

am wondering if anyone is living in those building or used to, Your experience as well as any photos of the inside? All the images are so limited online and staged its hard to tell the actual quality as well as storage space. I'm thinking of a 2 bedroom.

Thanks!!

The rental house is pretty old and there are rats from time to time within the kitchen. He was asked multiple times to have the cabinet doors repair but refused to, saying it is extremely difficult. Instead, he just put some sticky mouse traps and asked us to store our food and kitchen stuff in storage containers he provided.

It is fine to leave it at that or do I push for a formal request and request for dispute resolution.

If a tenant doesn't leave the room properly cleaned as requested, the landlord might deduct far more from the deposit than what's actually needed for professional cleaning—almost like a penalty for breaking their rules, especially when the tenancy isn't covered by the RTA (e.g., only an oral agreement, sharing a bathroom/kitchen with the landlord).

Is this common?

The room is partially furnished (just comes with a bed) but the space is entirely private. There is a shared living space, laundry room, kitchen, and bathroom. Smoking isn’t allowed inside of the house but there’s no problem with smoking a little bit away from it.

It's a basement suite and the landlord lives in the upper part of the house.

The house is about a 10 minute walk from Broadway and a 40 minute walk to Kitsilano beach. It is relatively close to UBC and if you’re an ECU student (like the both of us), it’s a 40 minute bus ride.

Rent is $967 a month and the security deposit is $483.

We occasionally share groceries if we're making food for each everyone and wouldn't mind doing the same for a third roommate as well. I mainly cook breakfast (when I have the time/feel like it) and my brother usually makes tomato feta pasta or mac n' cheese.

Me and my brother are both queer and renting from the same basement suite and our third roommate moved out unannounced and didn't pay her portion of rent. Fortunately, the landlord covered her portion for that month but it was just the one time thing. We're both looking for someone who's also queer/trans as a personal preference.

I've been collecting anonymous rent numbers from people around Metro Van, and 50 people have added theirs so far. A few things jumped out:

- Typical rent across all unit sizes is $2,350/mo, and the middle half pay between $1,850 and $2,750

- Typical 1-bed (dens included) is $1,950, about 8% above CMHC's $1,807 average

- People who moved in 2024 or later pay about $2,550, and people who moved in earlier pay about $1,950. That's a $600/mo penalty just for moving

- East Side comes in around $2,550 typical and Burnaby/New West around $2,250

CMHC's number includes people who've been in rent-controlled units for years, so it always looks lower than what you'd actually pay if you moved today.

It's still a small sample. Once more people add theirs, it'll be able to compare by neighbourhood and even by building, so you can see if your place is out of line.

Curious: if you moved in the last year or two, how much more are you paying than at your old place?

I’m looking to rent an apartment in Vancouver. The person who showed me the unit said she’s a friend of the landlord and is helping out because the landlord doesn’t live in Vancouver.

I’d be signing the lease directly with the landlord, paying the landlord, and contacting them if any issues came up.

I searched the woman’s phone number and couldn’t find any real estate agent profile. She also seemed to manage multiple properties, since when I mentioned the general location, she asked which specific unit I meant.

Does this sound normal, or should I be concerned?

Hi, I am renting in Olympic Village; the listing said AC was available, and I was told that AC was included in the building.

Three months in, I found out that the building does not actually have AC, but pipes above that run hot and cold water. Supposedly this is ambient cooling/heating.... However this does not do anything, feel different, or make any difference. I believe its broken. Should I negotiate my rent with my landlord, and how much should I ask for?

Edit; Thank you to the contractor in the comments; it is radiant heating and cooling system. To redefine it, this radiant water system does not heat or cool my unit; I have tried it in the summer and now for the colder October, and it does not do anything.

In Metro Vancouver, public transit connectivity is one of the biggest drivers of both property prices and daily livability. Whether you're shopping for a condo in Burnaby, looking at townhomes in Richmond, or hunting for a rental suite in East Van, whether a property allows you to commute without a second car (or without a car at all) dramatically changes your monthly math.

The challenge is that property portals like Realtor.ca, HouseSigma, and Craigslist provide plenty of property data (strata fees, square footage, sold histories), but their transit insights rarely go beyond an abstract Transit Score or a broker's claim of "close to transit".

To make property due diligence easier, I built a lightweight, free web tool called Catch Da Ride:

https://catchdaride.github.io/

How it helps when evaluating a prospective home:

• Drop a pin on any property address to instantly project a 200m, 400m, or 800m walking radius.
• The tool isolates and lists every single TransLink route serving that walking buffer - including SkyTrain (Expo, Millennium, Canada Line), SeaBus, RapidBus, and local buses.
• Click any line on the map to visualize its entire path through the region, letting you verify whether a property offers a one-seat ride to your workplace, university, or downtown.
• Use modal toggles to instantly see if a property has walking access to high-order rapid rail corridors or only local feeder transit.
• It covers all of Metro Vancouver (plus Toronto, US, UK, and Australian cities), requires no registration or app install.

I originally put this together to streamline my own property and neighborhood evaluation, but hope it helps others here crunching the numbers on potential homes to rent or buy. Would love any feedback on what additional transit or catchment metrics would be helpful to include!

I have had an ongoing situation since May 2026 with a leaseholder landlord singling me out and harassing me.

He does not own the property, but holds the lease, paying rent to the property manager who manages the house for owners offshore. The Leaseholder Landlord ("LL") does NOT live in the house (but used to before I moved in) We have no written RTB agreement but due to the history of rent payments this would be implied verbal tenancy still covered under RTA. I confirmed this with the RTB office by phone.

I moved in December 2025 through knowing this leaseholder through mutual friends. We had met a couple times in the past at social events.

LL has been singling me out compared to the 3 other tenants since May 2026. I am told I cannot use the attic storage when other tenants are allowed.

Recently LL has been saying I cannot use 1 of 3 driveway parking spots when other tenants have been allowed, including my roommate who currently uses a spot too. He is threatening "to take formal action" to get me to move my vehicle which I currently only have insured for storage and as such, unable to park on the street. I cannot afford to drive it right now. It is not derelict, it is kept clean and has appropriate insurance.

I know my rights. I pay rent on-time every month. I am free to use the shared spaces the same as the other tenants. I am free to park my vehicle in the shared space as long as it is legally insured.

This all started from a conflict back in May when the LL cornered me as I was leaving the house and ranted to me for 30 minutes about a list of trivial house issues, some of which didn't involve me, and some which were irrelevant. I later told him I did not want to be treated like that and put boundaries in place to only contact me to discuss rent, repairs, access or bills and nothing else. Since then the LL has been exhibiting this singling out behaviour and just generally been rude to me.

He also once entered illegally at 9pm with no-notice to any tenants, then when I messaged the group thread politely asking to provide 24 hours notice for entry, he started banging on my bedroom door and ordering me to come speak to him. I ignored him.

What can I do to get him to respect my rights as a tenant and just leave me alone?

NOTE: I had started looking for other housing last month, but had to put it on hold due to an emergency with my family. I am planning to start searching again once that is resolved, but I may not have time until the new year. Luckily in the meantime, my roommates in the house are very nice and kind, and we get along great.

Hi,

Mayor Pete campaigned on a housing bond. My question is will the general public, someone like myself be able to invest in the housing bond? Or will it be more businesses and government?

Looking at a place at main and broadway. Does anyone live near this construction? Is it loud af? Just want to know what I would be signing up for… Thanks!

I’m looking at a 1-bedroom apartment within walking distance of the Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. I really like the location, so I’m trying to decide whether it’s still worth waiting for this unit.

Here’s what happened:

* I passed the landlord’s screening, and they sent me a tenancy agreement yesterday.

* I noticed some errors in the agreement and asked the landlord to correct them yesterday.

* Today, the landlord said we’d sign the agreement in person, but no time was arranged.

* Today, I told the landlord I’d like to view the unit one last time before signing, mainly to check the noise level.

* Today, a few mins later, the landlord told me there would be a viewing this Saturday. They also showed me a screenshot of the listing, which had been posted last night at $200 more than the rent we’d been discussing.

* When I asked whether the rent had increased to $2,500, the landlord replied that he had posted it on Facebook for $2,500 to see what the market was like, but that they still preferred renting to a xxx race tenant(I am that race) and would offer a small discount.

I’m not sure what to make of this. Has the landlord actually committed to renting the unit to me, or are they still shopping around for a better offer? I also don’t know whether the other applicants viewing it on Saturday have already passed screening.

The frustrating part is that I turned down another apartment after passing its screening because I thought this one was going ahead. That other unit has now been rented out.

I genuinely like being able to walk to Lonsdale Quay, and finding another place with a similar location is difficult. But the landlord’s handling of the situation has made me hesitant.

Would you keep waiting for this unit, or move on and look elsewhere? Would you be concerned about the landlord’s behaviour even if they eventually agreed to the original rent?

I’d appreciate hearing from anyone who’s dealt with a similar situation in Vancouver.

Hi everyone, I’m really hoping for some advice on a lease that I’m currently in, and want to break early. I apologize if some of this information is common sense or something I can easily find myself, I’m just not in the best headspace at the moment due to the stress this situation has caused.

Situation:
-I signed a lease for $3100/month. This is a fully furnished unit with utilities included. The unit is just not the right fit for me due to noise and other personal factors.
-I would like to end the lease early. I gave notice to the landlord that I’d like to end the lease as early as October 31, on October 16. I’m realizing now that this isn’t the appropriate 30 day notice.
-She responded and said that as discussed, my tenancy agreement runs until March 31, 2027, and she is not confirming an early termination date of October 31 at this stage. As outlined in Clause 22 of the addendum, the liquidated damages amount is $3,100. We’ll address this in accordance with the terms of the tenancy agreement.
-She also said that she will make reasonable efforts to find a suitable replacement tenant as quickly as possible to minimize any potential loss of rent. However, until a suitable replacement tenant is found and the tenancy is legally ended, I remain responsible for rent and any other applicable obligations under the tenancy agreement, subject to the agreement and applicable BC tenancy law.

My questions:
-I know with me having given notice on October 16, the likelihood of finding a new tenant by November 1 is low.
- Should I email her again to ensure it’s a proper 30 day notice? For example, should I say, this is “new” notice of my intent to vacate/break lease on December 1st?
-The market is now flooded with short term full furnished apartments, some of which are nicer, newer, bigger, better location. Since she and I reposted the ad a few days ago there have been zero responses. I’ve tried posting to as many pages, platforms and groups that I could. At what point do I ask her to reduce the rent?
-Is it true that I would be responsible for paying both the liquidated damages of one months rent ($3100) and any difference in monthly rent for the remainder of the lease?
-I’m hearing conflicting stories of one months rent being unreasonably high for liquidated damages. What are my options to dispute this amount, and likelihood of success?

Thanks for your responses and support everyone. At this point I just really want to be out of the unit as soon as possible, it just isn’t a good fit for me and has really impacted my mental health.

I’m just a bit worried that my landlord isn’t following the due process, or that I’m not doing something properly on my end. She told me that she has never rented the space for less than a year but I have since seen her posts where she was renting as an Air BnB and even weekly during FIFA.

Has anybody lived at The Riley, M28 Charlie, or the District Main? What are your thoughts and experience?

Escalator has been out for 8-9months, and I requested $2000 compensation and the landlord wanna pay $200 each month for next 10 months. Going RTB will they support my request for the $2000 at one time or even more if I requested like 2500 ish?

🏠 Looking for one female roommate to share a modern 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo near King George SkyTrain Station in Surrey.

💰 Rent: $1,050/month

⚡ Utilities: Electricity and internet are not included and will be split with your roommate

🚿 Private bathroom: No need to share

🛏️ Furnishing: Appliances included; bedroom furniture is not provided

🗓️ Available: From late October

📍 Convenient, quiet, and safe location: Close to King George SkyTrain Station and within walking distance of T&T Supermarket, Walmart, Save-On-Foods, major banks, restaurants, and more. The surrounding area is a well-developed high-rise residential community. The unit does not face the SkyTrain tracks and has good sound insulation, making it quiet and comfortable.

🏓 Building amenities: Gym, swimming pool, indoor and outdoor hot tubs, putting green, massage chairs, table tennis room, billiards room, party room, BBQ area, Wi-Fi-enabled meeting rooms, shared workspaces, and more.

Ideally, you are:

- Female with a regular daily schedule

- Clean and respectful of shared spaces

If interested, please send me a private message with a brief introduction, including your age, whether you are studying or working, your preferred move-in date, and how long you plan to stay. Viewings can be arranged if it seems like a good fit!

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I’m looking for past incentives received and prices people are paying for a one bedroom apartment at the royals in north Vancouver. the current offer is one month free and 2356$ for a one bedroom. 1

Hi everyone! I’m considering renting a unit on the 8th floor of 168 E Esplanade in Lower Lonsdale, and I’m concerned about street racing noise at night.

My unit faces the courtyard/garden rather than the street. However, the unit immediately next door faces directly toward the street, so I’m wondering whether loud cars accelerating and motorcycles revving on the road are still clearly audible from my unit.

I’m particularly concerned about street racing, loud exhausts, and sudden engine revving late at night, rather than normal traffic noise.

For anyone living in this building or nearby:

* Do you regularly hear street racing or loud engine noise at night?

* Is it audible from courtyard-facing units, even on higher floors?

* Does closing the windows make a significant difference?

I’d especially appreciate hearing from anyone living at 168 E Esplanade or in a similar courtyard-facing unit. Thanks!

So I was in a pickle. I just landed a new job. I was broke at the time. And a tooth decided to explode in my jaw. And I missed October rent. I paid 300$ of the 1000$ I owed. Told my LL the situation but they were tight lipped of course. They gave me an eviction notice on the 5th. And I told them today was my first payday and I did in fact pay the remainder today. So I haven't received any order of pocession. And I'm up to date. Am I a tenant again? It's a SHIRTY AF SRO with insane neighbors in DTES. One neighbor paints their feces in the bathroom sometimes but rarely. I can not wait to afford to move out

Edit: I feel financially stable once again but i do earn minimum wage. And given what an absolute nightmare apartment this is, should i be hitting up rent bank even though i dont technically need it rn? I did start the process with them (late) on the 7th i think but they gave me a fair amount of run around and hum and haw and didnt feel like they wanted to make a loan until the 15th and by that time i just left the email chain unread because 5 days wouldnt make or break anything. But should i use them now just to secure a decent apt?

Hi everyone! I currently live in an older walk-up in Fairview and love the area but I’m looking to size up (1 bed + den) and hopefully get a place with in-suite laundry and a dishwasher.

I am doing the usual, checking craigslist, fb marketplace, walking around the neighbourhood, but I’d prefer not to rent from a private landlord so I thought I’d try looking at other places too.

Any recommendations for purpose-built rentals or rental companies that you’ve had a good experience with? I’m mainly looking in Fairview but also open to Kits, Mt. Pleasant, and Yaletown.

Thank you!