"I'm paying rent, and I live in this crap hole," says Roland Alexandre, standing on the cracked and damaged floor of the kitchen in his Villeray apartment, gesturing toward the stained and broken kitchen cabinets, their drawers rotted out from mould.

Alexandre's frustration is only made worse by the eye-popping contrast between his crumbling, $700-a-month, two-bedroom apartment and the newly renovated units right above him — one of which has been listed for as much as $150 a night on the short-term rental site Airbnb.

Alexandre is locked in a three-year battle with his landlord at the Régie du Logement, Quebec's rental board, claiming the landlord has failed to provide basic upkeep — a claim he says is supported by the state of two other apartments in the six-unit building, including the one advertised on Airbnb.

Alexandre is seeking $15,000 in damages, for the inconvenience he and his family have suffered and to defray the cost of repairs he's done himself.

This photo is featured in the Airbnb listing for the unit just upstairs from Roland Alexandre's in Montreal's Villeray neighbourhood. (Airbnb.ca)

A Laval woman named Melissa Muraca purchased the building in late 2017, inheriting the three-year-old complaint in the process.

According to Régie documents, Muraca has since countersued Alexandre, seeking $25,000 and claiming Alexandre's dog has caused much of the damage in the unit.

"I admit the lease doesn't allow pets in the homes, but my dog has been here for years," said Alexandre, who signed the lease in 2011. "The previous landlord had no issues."

Alexandre refuses to move out because he says that's exactly what his landlord wants.

"They offered me six months of free rent in exchange for rescinding my complaint with the Régie," he said. He says the landlord has made it clear his apartment won't be renovated as long as he is living there.

"I will fight this until the end, because I have proof [they want me to leave]," he says.

This is a close-up of the kitchen cabinets in Roland Alexandre's apartment. A 2016 home inspector's report found the kitchen and bathroom to be unsanitary. (Antoni Nerestant/CBC)

'We can't even shower here'

Alexandre says the apartment was already in pretty bad shape in 2011, when he and his family moved in.

But the price was right for a family on a fixed income, and he says he agreed to give the previous landlord time to fix it up.

However, he says, not much was done in the first four years, and the situation hasn't improved since Muraca bought the building.

The upstairs units have been gutted and renovated — one rented out on Airbnb, the other now leased for about $1500 a month.

"I'm also entitled to repairs in my apartment," Alexandre said.

Just how badly those repairs are needed is immediately obvious.

"We can't even shower here," Alexandre said, stepping into the bathroom. He banged a stick up against a crack in the ceiling, and debris fell into the tub.

"That's the kind of situation we're in."

Alexandre hired a private home inspector in 2016, who did a follow-up report last December after the new owner took over the building.

The reports state the unit is poorly insulated, and the kitchen and bathroom are unsanitary.

Since the last report, things have only gotten worse, Alexandre said.

"I spent the entire summer with a heating system that I can't turn off."

Roland Alexandre gestures towards peeling walls in the kitchen.

'They're trying to force me out'

In a separate complaint to the Régie, the new owner, Muraca, asked the rental board's permission to terminate the lease, accusing Alexandre of skipping rent in July, August and September.

At a hearing on that complaint last month, the rental board recognized Alexandre had been late on his rent payments on several occasions but did not grant the landlord's request, instead ordering Alexandre to pay what he owed.

Alexandre said he had actually tried to pay his rent with a series of post-dated cheques, however, they had been made out to the wrong entity, which he blames on miscommunication between him and Muraca's property manager, Jerry Sprio.

Alexandre says after he received the notice from the Régie that he owed three months' rent, he approached Sprio with a cheque as the property manager was getting into his car parked on the building's driveway.

He recorded himself handing Sprio the cheque, but Sprio dismisses him, throwing the cheque out of the car.

"Deal with the lawyers," Sprio tells Alexandre, before backing up over the cheque as he drives off.

"Jerry [Sprio] has thrown away the cheque. He's rolling right over it," says Alexandre, still recording. "This proves that he doesn't want to take the cheque."

A tenant confronts his property manager over the state of his apartment in Montreal's Villeray neighbourhood. 0:25

Alexandre offers this as proof that the owner and her property manager want to portray him as a bad tenant.

"That's their plan — they're trying to force me out," he says.

It's a scenario that tenants' rights advocate Ted Wright has seen played out before.

"It's not too prevalent but it does exist," said Wright. Leaving an apartment in disrepair "is one of the easiest ways to get rid of people."

"Once you get rid of the people, you can raise the rent and do what you want with the apartment."

Roland Alexandre has lived on the ground floor of this six-unit building in Villeray since 2011.

Landlord offers money to find 'amicable' resolution

After several emails and phone messages to Alexandre's landlord were not returned, CBC News caught up with Muraca one evening at her Laval home, seeking her comments on the dispute with her tenant.

She denied having any knowledge of issues surrounding the Villeray apartment building: no knowledge of the state of Alexandre's home, and no knowledge of complaints in her name before the Régie.

"My husband takes care of that," she told CBC News.

Robert Roselli, whose name appears as a contact for the property owner on Régie documents, confirmed to CBC News that he's involved with the case, although it's not clear in what capacity.

Roselli denies the owner has made any deliberate attempt to withhold repairs or force Alexandre to move out.

He acknowledged that the party he represents offered "a substantial amount of money" to help cover Alexandre's costs should he decide to leave, but he said it was only in the hopes of finding an amicable resolution to the conflict.

"It's not one of the situations where landlords want to throw out the tenants or any of that," he said. "They're ordinary people dealing with an ordinary tenant."

Roselli said an inspector was able to go to Alexandre's home Wednesday to assess the situation, which Alexandre confirms.

Roselli says the visit has been planned for months but didn't happen because, he says, Alexandre has not been co-operative.

For now, the legal battle continues, with another hearing scheduled before the rental board next month.