A few Burnaby landlords are feeling stung amid the COVID-19 crisis.

As a large number of people in Metro Vancouver are being laid off from their jobs due to the pandemic, renters are expressing frustration at the messaging they are receiving from landlords.

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I’ve written a series of columns in the past week (you can read them here and here and here) about landlords.

Some of these landlords have vented their anger at me via email. I can’t repeat the expletives, but one called me an “amateur” over these columns. Another told me I should be “stocking shelves at Walmart” – a pretty classist response, as though working at Walmart somehow makes you a lesser person.

All misrepresented what I was writing. They all seem to think I was saying landlords must not be charging rent right now. That’s not what I was saying. My criticism was over the messaging from a few landlords. Some were condescending and insulting about rent payments. One told a renter to act like a “grown up” – as though losing their job suddenly due to a global health crisis and wanting to work out some sort of possible payment plan made them a child.

Another suddenly announced a rent hike for three months from now, just days after Premier John Horgan said now was not the right time to even be discussing rent hikes.

I stand by these columns.

As always, writing about some bad landlords does not mean I’m saying all landlords are bad. I’m also not saying a landlord is bad for still charging rent to a tenant. What I was saying was that if a tenant has lost their job and is struggling, landlords should be working with them on a solution and not sending letters advising them to max out their credit cards.

Times are tough for everyone, although the situation faced by landlords is just not the same as for their tenants.

One Burnaby landlord wrote me saying him and his tenants are in the “same boat” with the financial impacts of COVID-19. Another wrote saying, “we’re all in this together.”

Well, not quite.

One big difference between landlords is a matter of equity. Someone in Burnaby who has owned property for just a few years has seen the value of that property skyrocket. I have a friend who bought a condo that has gone up in value by $350,000 in just three years.

I’m happy for people who own property seeing their investments pay off, but they haven’t really earned those hundreds of thousands of dollars because it’s a product of an overheated market pushed higher, in part, by an ocean of dirty money. It’s a gift that has come at the expense of people who can no longer afford to buy property. So they end up renting at rates that have skyrocketed as well.

Burnaby is one of the most expensive rental markets in all of Canada. So landlords have benefited from their equity going supernova and from the rental rates that have jumped along with the sales market. Landlords have also benefited greatly from Airbnb drying up the rental market, meaning they can charge more for rent from people desperate to find the few places that are available.

I don’t begrudge people who bought property and reaped the rewards (unless you are laundering money in Metro Vancouver real estate – I definitely begrudge you), but stop saying that you, as a landlord, are in the “same boat” as renters because you have value and options that they simply don’t.

So my main message is that landlords and those tenants who have lost their jobs need to work together and be kind to each other as we all struggle to survive this crisis.

Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.