I will do.

But surely you expect her to have been murdered by her tenant well before then?

. . . or conversely, a gimp?

Ahh shucks, you made me feel all secure about the idea now....

For what it's worth, we're basement tenants, an Italian family live above us, and our landlords are on the top floor. They're a retired couple, university professors, who live on the income from the rental units. The middle family have been there seventeen years.

I agree with what others have said - if you rent the basement, the house is less yours and more a communal space that you share part of. So yes - you can hear people clumping around, domestic arguments, the telly up too loud sometimes. I know our landlords have problems with the people in here before who smoked, and stored their stuff in the furnace room. Basement apartments are cheap for all the obvious reasons, which is why tenants can be kind of sketchy and unreliable, but they're also a godsend for people like us who are trying to find our feet.

We'd gone to check out a house that was up for rent, only to find the owner had neglected to mention in their ad that there were tenants in the basement. Okay, we're there now, just as well have a look around. Nice enough place, big double garage - with basement tenant's drum kit set up in their half. We make our excuses and leave.

Anyhow, next day owner rings us to say that if the drum kit had put us off, not to worry, it wasn't going to be used for a while - the couple downstairs had just had a baby and were putting the whole band thing on hold for a couple of months and would now only be doing vocals and guitar practice, quietly - in the basement.

Ah...the famous and quaint line of an old fashioned sunday tabloid exposé.

i know a few people who have rented their basement suites out and i have never seen them or even heard them for that matter, it just depends on what type of tenants you get really, i only found out when i saw a random person come out of the basement door and was told it was the renter of one of the suites.

i know another person who rented out the top half of his house and the family stopped paying rent after a while and then completed refused to leave the house until the courts and bailiffs got involved. it took months for any action to be taken and then they were finally evicted.

i guess it just depends on the type of person you rent your basement or house out to really, its best to try and get a reference from the person they last rented from.

lots of people dont bother to make their suites legal and it is one of those things where no one mentions anything to anyone really.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if you rent your basement, then you become a "landlord", and the renter is a "tenant". There are lots of provincial laws regarding landlords, tenants, and the relationship between them. DON'T proceed without becoming thoroughly familiar with the laws in your province. For example, suppose you rent to a student. Six months later you discover the student's girlfriend and child are living down there too. Can you raise the rent? Throw them out? I have no idea, but you'll have to know the law. Good luck.

nah, she would most likely still be a captive plaything in the early stages.

lots of people dont bother to make their suites legal and it is one of those things where no one mentions anything to anyone really.

Some, perhaps all, municipalities in the GTA deliberately turn a blind eye to illegal basement rentals because it increases the number of reasonaby priced rental units available.

Did you rent the place after this assurance?

...believe it or not, we politely declined the offer.