Bad Bad! Neighbour!

Perhaps I should clarify in response to a couple of comments, first, this is an amalgam of apartments, not all one, second, the true issue is one of responsibility. If the tenant isn't responsibile for their own behaviour, the landlord isn't responsible for repairs and the government isn't responsible for keeping housing affordable and available then who is responsible?

Alberta's Landlord Tenant act says a whole lot of things that aren't worth repeating because it would seem that no-one can be bothered to enforce them. I'm aware that with five health inspectors (probably an understatement) in a city of over a million there's not a lot that can be done, but when does the landlord become responsible? With thousands of people looking for homes, it shouldn't be that difficult to rent to people who care enough to follow the rules. --That would be where the personal commentary ends--

At what point does the landlord have to begin repairing drafty windows, ceilings that are developing mold from the leak two floors up from six months ago, or holes under the sink that let in the smoke every time the guy downstairs lights up his bong? In this era where everyone has a terminal case of CYA -if you can't figure that one out, think about it for a second- It isn't not possible to move into an apartment without signing a lease, unless it's to the landlord's advantage to not sign one.

Why, then, are some people seemingly exempt from the law? And the terms of their lease? A woman two floors down bragged for eight months that she was paying her rent two weeks late every month and "There's nothing they can do about it" There are property owners in this city who are known for the drug and prostitute activity in their buildings, water comes up from sewer pipes on some property and through rooftops and down stairwells in others,

Resident managers burn out three paychecks and a few dozen cases of beer into the job, so while tenants are knocking eachothers teeth in because they're sick of being kept up all night by parties or getting stoned by osmosis, they sit blissfully in their penthouse suites as the buildings they are responsible for roller-coaster up and down through various stages of disrepair. By way of clarification, the resident manager works for a month or two, gets the repairs done that the last one let go, then starts sitting on his or her butt, except for the day or two before the owner comes into town.

When you're being kept up all night, and can't study for finals because the guy downstairs doesn't turn it down until you pound on his door so hard he thinks it's going to fall in, when mold grows on the bathroom ceiling because requests for repairs go ignored, When your health is endangered because you are walking through clouds of marijuana, crack and hash smoke, but you're not *quite* living in a slum, and the vacancy rate is less than one percent and the rental rates are way more than you can afford on a single disability income. It would seem that your options are rather limited.

So again, and consider that this is a rhetorical question. Who is responsible?