Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[Hondaracer]

You can now, 10 bags multiple times a year at the Vancouver landfill and transfer stations without documentation

Finally they realized 99% of the illegal dumping was drywall

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by Infiniti

How often is Asbestos present in the older Vancouver specials? A friend of mine did a full gut job reno on a 60s era house near Tupper and no asbestos abatement was required.

Was still used up to the early 90’s

Most common in a Vancouver special would probably be in the taping compound and pipe insulation.

It seems that the better builders in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s had already mostly
Moved away from asbestos containing materials

[Eff-1]

We have a guy across the street who is known by everyone on the block as a bit of a troublemaker.

The guy who lives next door to him is super nice and I feel bad for him. He has to put up with garbage cans being left outdoors and attracting bears (that spill the garbage into his hard and it never gets cleaned up for days) to all kinds of other BS.

When we moved in, one of the first stories we were told by the neighbours is that this guy used to be a General Contractor himself but he never paid his trades on time, if ever. And every so often, those trades would come knocking on his door in the middle of the night looking to be paid. He supposedly declared bankruptcy last fall.

Keep that in mind as you read the following:

- Last December, this guy started digging up his yard to completely redo his front and back landscaping, including digging a giant hole which would require a retaining wall.

- He tore down all the trees between him and the house on the east side, destroying their privacy. They were not happy.

- A few weeks later, a stop work order is plastered to his door by the District. Clearly he had no permit to be doing this work.

- A few months after that, work finally restarts. Buddy guys are doing the work. The cheapest of the cheap.

- These guys were slow, messy and unorganized.

- District comes by and he fails a couple more inspections.

- Finally the buddy guys complete their portion of the project.

- Couple weeks after that, different buddy guys show up to build a fence between him and the west side neighbour.

- The fence ends up being over the property line and eats into west side neighbour's lot. West side neighour is furious.

- The next day, he presents west side neighbour with an invoice asking him to pay for half the fence LOL.

- West side neighbour is furious, but agrees to pay just to avoid having to deal with this guy. He's just happy there is a fence.

- Then last week, while i'm washing our car, an Indian guy pulls up and comes up to me asking if I knew whether that guy was home. He is one of the subtrades who delivered gravel to the project. He says he hasn't been paid yet and it's been months.

- Two days later, I notice he's bought a brand new Cadillac Lyriq. So he's got money.

- This week, a white guy has started work on installing hardscaping. (He backed his truck on to my lawn leaving tire treads while turning around and I had to leave a note on his windshield saying stop using my driveway to turn around but I digress).

- Yesterday, while the white guy wasn't there, an SUV pulls up full of 3 buddy guys. They look mad. They knock on his door. No answer. So they decide to steal the tools and equipment the white guy left on the property LOL. A gigantic saw used for cutting cement blocks and a large compactor. They lifted them into the back of their Honda CRV and drove off haha.

Everyday I watch the whole thing from my window, wearing my housecoat, sipping from a mug of coffee, wondering what will happen next.

[Traum]

How do you buy a $100k car when you have declared bankruptcy?

I should declare bankruptcy so that I can go out and buy a $100k car too~!

[Eff-1]

I genuinely don't know, but if I had to guess, the GC business was incorporated.

[Hondaracer]

Is that the same contractor who posed as a cop in north van? lol sounds like the same story

People like that deserve a hammer to their head. Especially if you’re dumb enough to stiff people on work down on YOUR OWN HOME ffs..

[JDMDreams]

You should do a live stream, like that Abby? Chilliwack house that always has accidents, shit happening on their street, ??? Profit

[Qmx323]

Yeah straight up might end up contributing evidence for a police case too

[CivicBlues]

Hope you don't get caught in the crossfire when his house is inevitably targeted by the Bishnoi gang for a drive-by. Maybe watch thru your blinds or something.

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Is that the same contractor who posed as a cop in north van? lol sounds like the same story

People like that deserve a hammer to their head. Especially if you’re dumb enough to stiff people on work down on YOUR OWN HOME ffs..

Not the same guy, but I know exactly who you are talking about. They both seem dumb enough to pretend to be a cop and pull over a Tesla that's full of dashcams lol.

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

Hope you don't get caught in the crossfire when his house is inevitably targeted by the Bishnoi gang for a drive-by. Maybe watch thru your blinds or something.

This is literally why I wouldn't help the guy who talked to me in my driveway, even though he seemed nice enough and I felt bad for him. Just an old Sikh grandpa who was stiffed.

As for witnessing the theft of equipment, part of me wondered if I should call the RCMP and then I realized I don't want any part of this guy's shenanigans.

I feel bad though for the white guy who got his stuff stolen. I imagine the homewowner will tell him too bad so sad.

[yray]

that sounds like some deep cove shit

[Eff-1]

He's quite something.

If I punch his name into BC CSO, there are several civil lawsuits filed against him, going back from 2016 right up to April of 2025.

But my favourite story to tell about this guy is that he has 3 young kids: 4, 7 and 9 I think.

Whenever they go out as a family, he gets in his car about 20 mins before everyone else and just sits in the car while he wife scrambles inside getting all the kids ready.

And after 10 or 15 mins, he'll aggressively HONK the horn because they are taking too long. Hahaha We hear it all the time. Beeeee-Bee-Bee-Beeeeep!! Then I look out the window mumbling wtf is that, and he's sitting in his driveway with the engine running.

If I did that, I'd be immediately divorced lol.

[Badhobz]

Is this a persian guy? this cant be a chinese guy.... no fucking way... cuz his wife would have beaten him to death.

[RabidRat]

I agree. My wife would not even bother divorcing me: it would be straight-up murder.

[RabidRat]

Originally Posted by Traum

How do you buy a $100k car when you have declared bankruptcy?

I should declare bankruptcy so that I can go out and buy a $100k car too~!

[donk.]

Its wild that "theft" is legal in BC

You can get a house renoD, not pay anyone, and maybe 6 months later after your court date you will be required to start paying.

On the other hand, walk into a 711, steal a snickers bar, and that warrants an immediate arrest because its also "theft"

People like dickhead above, should have his wages, car, house, whatever, put on an automatic garnish, and contractor should be paid immediately. After which dick head should be put into prison, immediately, for wasting the contractors time, my tax dollars that pay the police to attend, and everyone else involved

Edit 2:

No different than renting a unit, not paying rent, waiting 6-12 months until you get forcefully evicted, and not having to repay a dollar or spend any time in prison. Then you go an repeat for the next property

Edit 3:
Imagine starting a business, taking all that risk, and then someone who owns a house, decides to not pay you, so you go into default. All because you did work that they requested. Im triggered

[westopher]

It’s quite literally stealing, and theft above 10k I’d bet in most of these instances. Guy should totally be in jail and have assets seized.

[bcrdukes]

I'm no legal expert, but I can only assume they'll let the guy off because he's got a wife and kids to raise, so they might just slap him on the hand and let him rinse and repeat. I don't agree with the ethics (or lack of) and judgement of taking advantage of peoples labour and telling people to pound sand.

[JDMDreams]

It would be a shame if there was a house fire in North Van, in before North Van House fire

[6793026]

Well the gray area is where tools are "borrowed" with intension of returning...
Both parties would have to prove intension and whether the tools are "theirs".
You really can't do that at 7-Eleven but still

[Hondaracer]

lol nothing would ever happen to the guy unless he’s stealing from the govt. you think anyone is gonna put this guy in jail for theft among individuals when we can’t lock up actual criminals?

Even when you have all your ducks in a row for civil suits etc. even that’s not guaranteed.

We have a family friend who is a very successful businessman, started a company from nothing probably a net worth of 50-80 mill now. He tells a great story of the only people to ever fuck him over in his entire career were two separate Jewish guys who felt services rendered weren’t worth the money and refused to pay on principle, yuck

In order to show his company wouldn’t stand for this, he basically spent the money he was owed in legal battles simply to make a point that he wasn’t to be fucked with like this.

In both cases, easily won civil suits, judge ruled in his favour etc. case closed. He still never got paid in either case.

Now try and do that for a couple grand? Good luck.

[unit]

i usually have at least 1 non paying customer i am chasing.
most good customers if there is an issue they will tell you either right away or once you start bugging them for money.
some of the shit customers will either keep giving excuses or just ghost you.
if you try collections, it normally doesn't work on these types of small contractors who can just pop up or disappear so easily.
same with small claims court.. its so easy for these guys to change their company name or just to stall forever with paying even if they lose in court.
they can just keep appealing and using delay tactics until years later when they can just change their company name.. and the judges are so lenient when it comes to giving them more time to appeal... incredibly frustrating.
i heard in india if you don't pay you can be jailed. we should have that here since like you guys said it's literally just stealing.

[BIC_BAWS]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

He tells a great story of the only people to ever fuck him over in his entire career were two separate Jewish guys who felt services rendered weren’t worth the money and refused to pay on principle, yuck

This explains my previous employers treatment of contractors (not GCs.. like marketing contractors, vendors, etc). Absolute disgusting behavior and they have the entitlement to think that they are "good people" lol

[Badhobz]

It's not just Joe Shmoe Industries. We have vendors that refuse to pay their bills for months at a time. They only pay when we send final notices to them and threaten collections. Sometimes, they even go to collections.

Of course, the bills are in the hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars so i get why they hang on to the money. The interest dividends alone are massive.

Anyways everything is fucked. im glad i dont run a business and just collect a pay cheque. Too much headache...