For people living in houses in Canada, shoveling snow in the winter and weeding in the summer is definitely an unavoidable job.
Just recently, a Chinese resident living in Richmond ran into a troublesome affair! Due to the weeds in the yard during the epidemic returning home, the garden looked very unsightly, and it directly lost nearly $1700 CAD.
This sudden lesson was simply caught off guard...
Image source: Richmond News
According to English-language news richmond News, although a Chinese man, Ruiliang Jian, has lived in Richmond for many years, when the epidemic first began in 2020, he decided to return to China to live for a while and entrusted the house to the family's tenants to help take care of it.
For most of 2020, Mr. Jane lived in China, and one of his tenants moved out in March of the same year. After that, the house became empty and no one managed it anymore.
However, what he did not expect was that this was the beginning of a nightmare!
Shortly after that, the city government received a complaint about Mr. Jane's unsightly yard. Immediately afterward, a regulatory officer went to the residence to investigate and found that the house did violate the city's Unsightly Premises Regulation and demanded that he pay a $1694.90 bill.
Schematic diagram, source: Shihua Daily
The ordinance stipulates that the owner or occupant of a property must not make the house look unsightly.
"The cost of this work in the city is only about $501.24 CAD, or $23.67 per hour, plus a 20 per cent administration fee, and the government's bills are undoubtedly exaggerated and unfair," Said Mr. Jane said. ”
Subsequently, Mr. Jane filed a lawsuit with the Civil Mediation Court (CRT) for a refund of the difference between the city's so-called $1694.90 CAD and his estimated $501.24 CAD, which is approximately $1193.66 CAD.
CRT said there was a lot of weed around the house, including the public boulevard outside (which is still the property's area), and the grass on the ground had grown to waist-high.
With a knock on the door that had not been answered for a long time, law enforcement officials left a notice on the door asking that the long grass be cut by May 22, 2020.
But Mr. Jane's family has long been uninhabited, naturally no one to deal with.
So the regulator returned on May 27, saw that the grass had not been cut and that the notice remained on the door, and sent a letter to Mr. Jane.
The letter demanded that the weeds be cleared by June 10, otherwise "necessary action" would be taken at Mr Jane's expense.
Mr. Jane still did not respond, so his home was cleaned up at the expense of the city government, and an invoice was sent in August for a total of $1,694.90.
Schematic diagram, source: Lianhe Bao
Mr. Jane said he didn't know the invoice existed until November 2020. While he admits he should pay for the city's funding to help weed, he seriously questions the cost of the work.
After receiving the government bill, Mr. Jane paid the full amount as requested, but also reported the matter to the Civil Mediation Court (CRT) for a refund of the "unreasonable" difference.
However, the CRT ruled that Mr. Jane's claims were "not covered by small claims" and therefore refused to settle Mr. Jane's claim.
As of now, it is unclear whether Mr. Jane will deal further with the matter.