Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics in a few months and thousands of people will be renting short term accommodation to watch the Olympic games take place. This is great for Vancouver as the economy will benefit from this influx of people, one land lady in particular is taking advantage of this, unfortunately at the expense of her tenant.
Sue Brown, a graduate student at Simon Fraser University, moved into a suite in Vancouver on July 1st,  she was happy renting the accommodation and the lease was to end on the 31st January 2010. This was the contract that she had signed and gave her plenty of time to find somewhere to live after the new year. It was a big surprise when her landlord Mariana Gerenska informed her she had to move out.

Sue Brown, who is studying criminology at University was given a “notice to end tenancy” two weeks ago, this unexplained act made her and the other tenants suspicious as they had all signed leases due to end next year.

This seemed very stranged to the tenants so they asked their Mariana to explain her actions, Mariana claimed that her husband was planning to move from their rented accommodation inVictoria in February. They were also expecting seven family members who were travelling from Bulgaria to be with them for the birth of their first child early in March.

This was a suitable explanation and the tenants were unhappy but understanding,this was until one of them found an advert on the internet, advertising the suites at an astonishing $34,000 for February and March, the time when the Winter Olympics would be held at Vancouver.

“It’s a really, really, really horrible, vulnerable awful feeling to lose your home,” said Brown Monday.

The tenants were even more upset from this as they felt Mariana had lied to them, they thought at the worst she would put the suites back up for rental after their family had left for the $580 a month. The advert, however, made them think that really she wanted to extort the public coming to Vancouver for the Olympics and at their expense as they have to find somewhere to live at a time when everyone is putting their prices up. For students with little income and exams this was incredibly stressful.

When approached about the online advert, Mariana claimed she put the ad up over a year ago, just to see if any one would contact her. We have to believe Mariana’s intentions, although she has admitted if someone contacts her about the suits at that price she may have room, depending on how many of her family arrive.