How far will residents go to break condo rules?

David Fleming, a Toronto real estate agent, recounts how one of his clients swaddled a propane tank in a blanket and placed it in a baby stroller to get it up to their unit undetected.

Fleming is also author of the Toronto Realty Blog, on which he recently posted about the most commonly broken rules in condos. Barbecues on balconies, improper use of garbage chutes and undertaking unapproved renovations all made his short list.

“I think people just say, ‘If I’m going to live in this giant concrete box in the sky, I want to be able to cook some meat whenever I want to,'” he says.

Some rules have their place, Fleming says, and they should be enforced accordingly.

While serving as a condo board vice-president, he dealt with a unit owner whose apparent live-in girlfriend was parking in one of seven visitor spaces virtually every night. The property manager sent a letter on their behalf, quoting the applicable bylaw and rule, letting the unit owner know his girlfriend couldn’t park there anymore.

“He made all kinds of threats that never went anywhere,” Fleming says.

Other rules, while perhaps well intentioned, may fail to consider the will and day-to-day lives of residents.

On one occasion, in a scene that would be fitting in an episode of Seinfeld, Fleming waved to his concierge. Despite knowing him to be a resident, the concierge wouldn’t buzz Fleming in as he juggled his groceries to find his key fob. When he expressed his frustration, the concierge informed him that it was against a new rule enacted by his condo board.

The apparently unpopular rule didn’t last long, because of lack of buy-in from residents.

Other rules, although valuable, can be next to impossible to enforce, such as preventing residents from flicking cigarette butts off balconies, Fleming says. Posting polite reminders are a waste of time and resources, he says, because they don’t work.

“You can’t stop jerks from being jerks,” Fleming says. “Every single spring I go out and clean up hundreds of cigarette butts, beer bottles, cans, newspapers.”

However, Eric Laxton, a condo lawyer at Chappell Partners LPP, recently cautioned in an article that, yes, sometimes even ridiculous rules must be enforced. Although condo boards can enact, amend and repeal rules on their own, he says that condo boards have a duty to enforce rules that are contained in their corporation’s declaration.

Rules contained in the declaration, which is drawn up by the building’s developer, don’t have to meet a standard of “reasonableness,” as do bylaws and other rules, Laxton says.

“The declaration is essentially like the constitution of Canada, but it’s the constitution of the condominium corporation,” he explains. “You need between 80 and 90 per cent owner approval to make those changes.”

If boards don’t enforce a rule, an owner may bring an application on behalf of the corporation to obtain compliance from a rule-breaker, Laxton says.

“In the event that (the board) decides to enforce the rule down the road, an owner can argue that it has not been enforced all this long, and therefore shouldn’t be enforced now,” he adds.

Part of enforcing rules is ensuring residents are aware of them in the first place. Sue Langlois, founder and CEO of Digi-Notice, says that how rule reminders are delivered can make a difference.

She echoes Fleming, saying it’s not effective to simply tell residents not to engage in a certain activity, such as washing cooking grease down their kitchen sink. Instead, she suggests that management should explain to residents the problems that their actions cause, outlining how expensive it is to fix (in this case, tens of thousands of dollars) and what to do instead (freeze the grease and place it with regular garbage down the chute).

Langlois also recommends using visual reminders and keeping text to a minimum.

In the case of cooking grease, she shares a slogan: “Stop and think, not down the sink.”

Michelle Ervin is the editor of CondoBusiness magazine.