Photo: CTV

A B.C. landlord has unleashed his inner pet detective with demands that residents who own about 30 dogs submit samples of their animal's excrement to pinpoint the 'poopetrator' fouling the stairwell.

A blanket letter to tenants of the three-storey suburban Vancouver apartment building says technology exists to identify the dog that left a mess twice — and non-compliance will result in eviction.

That technology involves the irrefutable evidence of DNA analysis, which has been available for about a year in Canada through a company called PooPrints.

Maggie Ashley, with PooPrints, says hundreds of strata councils across Canada are considering gathering the DNA of residents dogs, although she adds the threats from the Burnaby landlord are an unorthodox approach.

Resident Claude Paulin-Dupere says he elected to take his dog down the elevator after smelling the odour on Saturday night so foul he thought someone had died.

But the 23-year-old says he's not planning to scoop any of his dog's doo for his fecal-focused landlord, and has pledged to fight any eviction notice tooth-and-claw.