KITCHENER - The rural eastern Ontario home of one of Waterloo Region's most notorious and reclusive landlords has been ransacked following his long absence from the public eye.

It's the latest in the strange case of Terry Good, who owns a network of abandoned rental properties in Kitchener and Waterloo, and who some believe has fled into anonymity in Costa Rica.

This week, a neighbour in Baltimore, Ont. was out four-wheeling in the area near Good's 250-acre property when she and her boyfriend noticed something suspicious. The windows in Good's luxury BMW 645Ci were smashed in, the trunk was open, and legal documents were scattered on the ground.

An axe was left sticking out of the front windshield and another was left in the trunk. The two cottages on the property were also broken into, their windows shattered and the homes ransacked.

The neighbour was concerned about what she saw and reported it to local police, who are well aware of Good's bizarre vanishing act. They said officers have been called to the property at least two other times this month.

Police agree it's a strange situation, but say there isn't a whole lot they can do.

"He wouldn't be the first person to just leave everything behind and take off to the sunny south, and run away from all their responsibilities," said Const. Steve Bates, media relations officer for the OPP's Northumberland detachment.

The OPP last managed to find Good in 2013, when a friend concerned for his well-being filed a missing persons report. Officers were able to confirm at that time that Good was still alive.

Without another missing person report, police don't have the authority to track him down again, he said.

Police checked out the property after the recent break-in, but because the vehicle isn't reported stolen, there's little they can do, Bates said. As an abandoned property that appears to have been vandalized, it's more of a bylaw issue for the local municipality than a police matter.

"The state of the disarray and the damage to the vehicle is causing people to call," Const. Bates said. "We looked into it, but we don't have an investigation ongoing. A search of the property was done, but nothing was found that would cause us to investigate any further."

He said the property doesn't look like anyone has lived there for a long time. It's an unusual scene, given that the house was left fully furnished, with expensive art on the walls, dishes still in the dish rack, clothes in the closet and a luxury car parked in the driveway.

Parts of the cottages have begun to collapse, and wild animals have moved in. Mail is piled up at the doors.

"It didn't even looked inhabitable, from the state of disrepair of the homes themselves," Bates said. "It looks abandoned."

In Waterloo Region, Good has a reputation as an elusive landlord whose many properties have crumbled into neighbourhood eyesores. A handful of them have been sold in recent years to developers, but many others have been taken over by squatters and are causing headaches for city municipal bylaw officials.

Last winter, the City of Kitchener had to shut off the water to his house at 101 Mount Hope St. after pipes burst and caused flooding. It's the same home where Good was shot on the front porch by an ex-lover in July 1998.

George Carter, the former director of the Canadian Cancer Society in Waterloo, confronted Good with a sawed-off shotgun and fired three rounds at him. The attack left Good maimed for life, and sent Carter to prison for 10 years.

Tenants have frequently taken their complaints about Good's neglected properties to the provincial landlord and tenant board, but Good long ago gave up collecting rent, or keeping up with maintenance. City bylaw staff have repeatedly taken him to court to force him to fix up his neglected buildings.

Repeated attempts to reach Good for stories about his abandoned properties have been unsuccessful. In the hamlet of Baltimore, where Good was once a vocal critic of development, speculation about his whereabouts and disappearance are rampant.

Good's unusual behaviour as a landlord dates back decades. In 1986, a provincial commissioner with the Residential Tenancy Commission ruled that Good had illegally overcharged student renters at 10 Austin Dr. in Waterloo by more than $28,000.

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A decade earlier, three Waterloo women complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission that Good raised their rent after learning one of them was gay.

In 2015, the City of Kitchener moved in to seal up Good's former apartment building at 48 Weber St., after it had become overrun with squatters and drug dealing.

Months later, the City of Waterloo took similar action against his 35-unit apartment building at 154 Erb St. E., moving out tenants and boarding the place up. Both properties were later sold to developers.