Toronto Renters Forum

Regarding your heating problem, I'll bet that if your apartment is cold, then so are the apartments of many of your neighbours – you and your neighbours could try a letter-writing campaign.  Many were cold here in my building last year, and we got the heat turned on my sending a barrage of complaint e-mails to our property manager.  Complaining "en masse" works (at least some of the time).

If you have a tenants' association in your building then approach them for help, and if you don't, then all you need to do is to stick-up some posters in visible places around your building, providing the property manager's e-mail address, mentioning the City of Toronto Heat By-law (just in case any of your neighbours don't know the rules), and urging tenants with cold apartments to send in complaint e-mails that threaten that you will call "311" to file an official complaint if your landlord doesn't act.  The more of your neighbours who send complaint e-mails, the quicker the response from your landlord will be.  Be prepared to post your notices more than once – landlords who see the notices will likely take them down, which is fine, just stick-up new ones.

Also, I would suggestion getting a decent thermometer and keeping a "log" of the temperature in your apartment.  Such documentation strengthens your case, should you need to convince the by-law inspectors or Landlord and Tenant Board that the heat is a real problem.

But what can I do if my landlord doesn't fix the heat after I've already complained a few times?

I have found in the past that my landlord responds faster to complaints about the heat if I indicate to them that I know about the City of Toronto Heat Bylaw and imply that I am willing to file a complaint with the city (by calling “311”) if they don’t do something about it.

The City of Toronto Municipal Code 497-1.2 (https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/municode/1184_497.pdf) requires our landlord to provide a minimum temperature of 21° Celsius in all areas of our apartments (including every room, hallway, closet, bathroom, etc.) between September 15 and June 1.

The City of Toronto takes heat complaints seriously;  they will have a bylaw officer investigate promptly, and they can fine the landlord or otherwise compel them to resolve heating problems.  Usually making that threat is all it takes to get a heating problem resolved (although there have been exceptions).