To what degree am I required to help my landlord rent out my apartment?

Factual Questions
1

I’m not inclined to be very helpful towards my landlord. I think he is a prick, and I have wasted almost four months in an apartment I can barely sleep in, under a bunch of young girls acting as you would expect young girls to act. I don’t think their behaviour rises to the point where I might have a legal grievance.

Anyway, this applies to a basement suite. I’ve given notice, and the landlord recently started showing the apartment. The landlord tells me that if I don’t have the apartment spotless, he will clean it himself, and deduct the amount from my security deposit. My apartment isn’t spotless, but it isn’t a health hazard; it doesn’t stink, there is nothing rotting, the dishes are done, etc. There are a lot of disordered papers, textbooks, half-worked assignments etc covering almost all horizontal surfaces, but nothing that I would call dirty. The worst thing in the house is the pile(s) of dirty laundry in the bedroom; he kicked them all into the corner and covered them with a blanket. The only cost to clean the apartment is time, ie it needs to be picked up.

From what I can determine from the Residential Tenancies act (for Saskatchewan), the land lord can deduct money from my security deposit if I make the common areas unclean (not applicable), if I cause damage (not applicable), or if after I vacate the apartment, the apartment requires cleaning (I don’t intend to). From this site: http://www.saskjustice.gov.sk.ca/provmediation/rentalsman/land-ten.shtml, it says that the tenant is responsible for: “the ordinary cleanliness of the dwelling”. But what is “ordinary cleanliness”, i.e. what is the minimum level of cleanliness I must maintain while he is showing the apartment to avoid losing my deposit?

So my questions are these:
How clean does my apartment need to be for me to keep my deposit?

Does my landlord get anyway say over how I run my appliances? i.e. if I want to leave my coffee pot on all day (assuming I’m in the house, or coming back soon to the house), or leave my computer on all day, and he objects, may I tell him to autocopulate?

As a side note, what would happen if I suddenly developed a taste for Surströmming, or plain old unobjectionable canned herring right around when he was about to show the apartment.

Thanks.

2

I’ve never heard of any landlord showing an apartment BEFORE the previous tenant has moved out. I don’t know how it is in Canada, but here in the states, your landlord has to give you 24 hours notice before coming onto the property. And I highly doubt he can charge you for ‘cleaning’ your apartment to his satisfaction. He’s not a maid.

3

Normally in Canada he does have to give 24 hours notice, but after I have given notice to terminate the rental agreement, he doesn’t need to give notice if he is showing the apartment.

4

I’m not sure exactly what you are worried about - is he threatening to clean it and deduct that from the security deposit while you are still living in it?

It seems that you intend to clean the apartment before you vacate, and that is typically necessary to reclaim a full deposit. IANAL, YMMV and all that, plus what exactly constitutes “clean” is obviously a subjective matter - make sure you take photos of the place before you leave as it seems he is hell-bent on your destruction for whatever reason.

But your OP seems to be asking how clean you need to keep it while you are still living there and he is showing it to prospective tenants. I would not personally allow any landlord to take it upon him/herself to “clean” my apartment while I’m living in it, and depending on the laws in your jurisdiction, he is probably not legally allowed to either.

5

I don’t think you are correct about this. As long as you are occupying the rental unit, the landlord cannot enter at will. He must give notice to show the apartment. Also, you have no obligation to spruce up the place to help him rent the unit. Just get it cleaned up before you leave and you should get your security deposit back. My suggestion is to do a walk-through with the landlord to make sure that the apartment is clean enough for you to get back your deposit. This is actually something you should’ve done before moving in in order to establish the move-in condition. I’d also suggest taking pictures of the apartment before you leave in case there’s a dispute.

6

Well, that’s interesting. I was about to agree that the landlord has to give 24 hours notice before showing your place to a new tenant (that certainly seems to be true in Alberta ), however the OP’s cite seems to indicate that notice isn’t required in Saskatchewan to show the premises after you’ve given notice of termination - “The landlord cannot enter the tenant’s premises unless he or she has made an appointment and given the tenant at least 24 hours’ notice, except in cases of emergency or where the landlord has the right to show the premises after the tenant has given notice of termination.” Weird. I guess this is an illustration that the jurisdiction is always important when answering legal questions! :slight_smile:

My only suggestion to the OP is that his cite is clearly more authoritative than the collective wisdom of SDMB can be (unless there’s a member familiar with Saskatchewan landlord and tenant law in the audience), so he should just pore through that.

7

The only reason I can think would be if he pays for electricity, or sees it as a fire hazard. But this restriction would be spelled out in the lease, no?