EDMONTON -- An Alberta landlord is owed more than $12,000 after one tenant died a gruesome death inside a rental apartment and the co-tenant left the property in "extremely filthy" condition after moving out months later.

A tenancy dispute officer ordered the male tenant to pay the landlord $12,130.51, including $5,500 in insurance deductibles, $2,500 in cleaning and $1,500 in odor treatment. 

"The Landlord discovered it to be in a significantly damaged and dirty state," reads a Jan. 21 written decision from the Alberta Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service which pegged the total damage at close to $64,000.

The ARTDRS order noted heavy nicotine staining on the ceiling, "heavily stained and splattered" bathroom fixtures, "heavily stained and smeared" kitchen appliances, "hundreds" of empty beer cans, and dozens of pizza boxes as well as abandoned furniture throughout the apartment. 

"The photos provided by the Landlord show areas of the floor thickly covered in a viscous substance. The Landlord described it as crystalized cat urine," reads the decision from tenancy dispute officer J. Young.

The document doesn't identify the tenant or landlord by name and does not list the city the property is in. 

'TRAUMATIC FATALITY'

The condo apartment was freshly painted and had new flooring when the tenants moved in on Nov. 15, 2015.

In August of 2016, the landlord discovered the tenants were smoking inside the condo apartment, against the terms of their tenancy agreement. 

In early 2017, the landlord found out the pair had a pet cat, also in violation of the tenancy agreement. As a result, the three signed an amended agreement increasing the monthly rent by $300 to $2,200. 

In April of 2019, one of the tenants died inside the apartment. The ruling doesn't detail what happened but describes the death as "a traumatic fatality" occurring in one of the unit's two bathrooms and involving "significant blood loss." 

"The bathroom in which the fatality occurred had to be gutted to the studs and that flooring in the bathroom and other areas outside the bathroom had to be replaced," reads the ruling. 

The landlord was unaware of the death when he initiated an inspection three months later that found the apartment to be in an uninhabitable state. 

The remaining tenant moved out at the end of July 2019.

Cleaning and restoration work began soon after but was limited by the state of the apartment, eventually taking more than 60 hours to complete with the decision noting, “cat litter and cat feces were scattered over the balcony."

"The Landlord described the odor as overwhelming and said that masks had to be worn in the rental premises during remediation work." 

DAMAGES AND DEDUCTIBLE

The condo corporation's insurer covered about $38,000 worth of damages associated with the fatality, and the landlord pressed the tenant to repay the remaining nearly $26,000 in damages not covered by insurance. 

Dispute resolution began with a teleconference in October of 2019. The landlord sought repayment for both his own and the condo corporation's insurance deductibles as well as costs for cleaning, replacement blinds, $3,800 in lost rent and $250 in late rent fees. 

The dispute officer rejected the late fees and some of the cost of renovation work, but awarded a total of $13,030 in damages, reduced by the tenant's $900 security deposit. The damages include $5,500 in insurance deductibles, $5,000 in cleaning and restoration, and $1,900 in lost rental income. 

The dispute officer's order is binding and enforceable by the courts.