A man says he and his family are being treated unfairly by the company that manages the home they rent in northeast Calgary after they were told they could not renew their lease because of noise complaints.

Mukesh Khanal, his wife and his young daughter moved into their home in Martindale back in July 2017 and felt that it was a perfect place for them to be and expected that they could stay a few years.

However, he says that the company has issued them a notice that they will have to leave on June 30, when their lease is up, because their daughter has been making too much noise.

Khanal says the tenant who lives downstairs is the one complaining.

“At first, it was something like ‘your baby walks too loud’. Our kid was just a year old, she was just learning how to walk, and so it was a one-year-old’s walk with heavy feet.”

The past few times it’s been because of illness, something that he feels can’t be avoided.

“We would explain each time what had happened. If the complaint was about the baby crying in the middle of the night, we would always write back to the company, explaining it’s because our kid was sick.”

Khanal says that his daughter does cry in the middle of the night when she wakes up hungry and they do what they can to quiet her down.

“She would wake up crying every now and again. As soon as we gave her the formula and gave her something to eat or drink, she would just calm down.”

He says that he’s only gotten a couple of e-mails from the company about noise but has gotten a number of text messages from the downstairs tenant, telling him to calm his daughter down the second she makes any noise.

Khanal says he doesn’t think that the company is trying to discriminate against him or his family, but he does feel that the situation is unfair, especially because both the company and tenant downstairs knew the Khanals are a young family.

“I agree that the landlord has the right to ask me to move out because I signed a one-year contract and it ends June 30. Technically, legally they’re right but I just think that it’s not fair,” Khanal says.

When it comes to June 30, Khanal says that he will move, but it won’t be without stress.

“There’s plenty of apartments in Calgary, so I can easily move to another one. That doesn’t mean that it’s not stressful. We like this place when we saw it at first glance. We thought it was perfect for our kid. She loves to come to the window and watch cars pass by.”

The company released a statement to CTV Calgary, saying that the reason that Khanal and his family need to move out is because of the end of the lease:

The tenant is on a fixed-term lease that ends on June 30, 2018. According to the Residential Tenancy Act, Part 2 Section 21, part of the tenant’s covenant in a fixed-term lease is “that the tenant will vacate the premises at the expiration or termination of the tenancy."

In fact, according to the residential tenancy act, Part 2 Section 15, “Notice to terminate is not required in order to terminate a fixed term tenancy” and we have given Mr. Khanal 45 days’ notice to allow him to have more than enough time to find another place for him and his family. This right to not renew a tenancy goes both ways – it is a right of both the landlord and the tenant.

The property in question is a house and we are exploring all possibilities and opportunities for it including possibly a sale.

I assure you there is no discrimination in any way in this matter. In fact, we take pride in having accepted tenants of all ethnicities, families with young children, couples with expected pregnancies, pets, etc. when they have been turned away by other landlords. It is ironic that this accusation has come to light as it is actually my sole purpose as a landlord and an immigrant of minor ethnicity (I am proudly Filipino) to give immigrants like me the same break I had in this great country of Canada.

Khanal says he intends to file a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal.

(With files from Jordan Kanygin)