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Students will have to fork over $8,000 after “shocking” damage to a rented house in Antigonish, the location of St. Francis Xavier University.
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According to Blacklock’s Reporter, a Nova Scotia judge called the rental property “a real-life Animal House,” with some 15 student tenants coming and going over a two-year period.
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“The tenants had not yet been born when National Lampoon released Animal House in 1978,” wrote Judge Raffi Balmanoukian of Nova Scotia Small Claims Court.
“Missing from that classic perhaps is a storyline in which the homeowner and inhabitants confront each other about the state of the dwelling in which much of the action takes place. If such a scene there had been, I expect it would have looked something like this dispute.”
Balmanoukian called it a “shocking” collection of beer cans and pizza boxes.
“A bit dirty is a mastery of understatement,” he wrote. “One might equally call the Battle of Ortona a bit of a dust-up.”
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Among the damage were holes punched in drywall, doors knocked off hinges, “cotton glued to the ceiling” and a trash-filled garage including an empty beer keg.
“The house needed to be cleaned not once but twice and painted inside top to bottom,” said the Court.
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Students paid $4,200 a month in rent with a $2,100 security deposit and one testified they left the property “a bit dirty.”
“The landlord took the position the house was virtually destroyed,” wrote the Court.
It was “something of a Grand Central Station for all and sundry.”
The landlord’s bills included $19,911 to replace siding, $3,951 for construction supplies including drywall, $2,613 for new windows, $1,812 for painting, and $2,199 to hire cleaners.