THE GOOD LIAR

Carolyn Krebs (alias Carolyn Goodman, alias Marian Linton) may be the city's most hated landlord. She ignores work orders, falsifies documents and evicts tenants without cause. How one woman is making a killing off a system that's too broken to stop her

- RACHEL BROWNE

In January of 2023, Vanessa Colvin was at home at 500 Dawes Road when a piece of mail slipped through the slot of her apartment door. It was from her landlord, a woman named Carolyn Krebs, owner of the real estate company Havcare Investments. Krebs is small in stature, with light hair and weathered skin. At a glance, she evokes the image of a kindly grandmother. Colvin, who had moved into her two-bedroom in 2013 with her three sons, had heard the stories that Krebs was greedy, cruel and vindictivebut she hadn't experienced anything like that first-hand. What came through the mail slot was a rental ledger prepared by Krebs. It indicated that Colvin was behind on her rent-way behind-painstakingly detailing missed payments dating back to 2015 and concluding that she was thousands of dollars in arrears. None of it made any sense. Colvin always paid her rent. Stunned, she asked property management for clarification, but nobody would give her any answers, and Krebs couldn't be reached.

A few weeks later, Colvin nervously attended her first hearing at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, anxious to clear up what was obviously a misunderstanding. But the LTB adjudicator sided with Krebs, ordering Colvin to pay roughly $5,000-an amount that would increase the longer she took-or vacate her unit. If she did neither, said the adjudicator, Krebs could remove her by force. Now, Colvin began to panic. This wasn't some accounting mistake. It appeared to be a targeted eviction. And the stakes couldn't have been higher: Colvin had nowhere else to go. Her rent ate up most of her $1,166 monthly Ontario Disability Support Program payments. She realized that she was in over her head. She reached out to Karly Wilson, a lawyer with a non-profit called Don Valley Community Legal Services, whom Colvin had heard about from other tenants.