Rutland home searched by police partially owned by city councillor

Councillor’s rental searched

Photo: Contributed

Tactical police on McCurdy Road Thursday.

A police investigation at a Kelowna home partly owned by a city councillor has drawn attention to ongoing concerns about crime and nuisance activity at the property.

Members of the Kelowna RCMP Crime Reduction Unit, along with the Southeast District Emergency Response Team, executed a search warrant Thursday morning at 330 McCurdy Road. Police surrounded the residence during the operation.

A witness told Castanet he saw four people taken into custody by RCMP at the scene.

The home is partially owned by Kelowna Coun. Mohini Singh.

“I own one-fourth of it,” Singh said when contacted by Castanet.

Singh told Castanet she and the other owners have been attempting to remove the current tenants for some time.

“We've been trying to evict those people forever. We've been trying to get rid of our tenants for a while now, and it hasn't been easy,” she said.

“They violated every bylaw. I’m there every second day.”

Singh said the tenants have lived in the home for about a year and that she also experienced issues with a previous renter.

“My previous tenant was really nice, and then he got on to drugs and he went completely off his rock, completely went offside, completely changed. And it's really a problem,” she said.

Regarding the current tenants, Singh said their references initially appeared solid.

“They came. I checked their references, all good, and I don't know what happened. And it's been a very difficult ride,” she said.

“I double checked with a friend of his and his employer. They all spoke very highly of him.”

Singh said she has tried to be accommodating with tenants facing financial hardship.

“I have been very kind to my tenants, very kind and supportive. And, you know, when they lost their jobs, I said, you know, one guy lived down below, I said you can pay me late. It's OK, you know, we all go through troubled times — now I have this problem."

"My goal is to evict them, because they're creating a nuisance in the community.”

She added that rent has not been fully paid in recent months.

“They haven't paid their rent. One of the men hasn't paid in two months. The others only paid a portion of the rent,” Singh said.

A nearby resident described the house as “a notorious problem property” and said bylaw officers attend the home regularly.

Christopher Bocskei, who ran for city council in 2022, lives a block away from the home and says things need to change.

''There has been multiple violations including illegal structures... criminal activity. I know they were building bikes in the backyard. There is always something going on,'' he said.

Bocskei says multiple different people are see coming and going from the home on a regular basis.

''It would be nice if she got these tenants out and this didn't happen again," he added

Singh said she has owned the rental property since 2021 and that bylaw officers have attended more than a dozen times over the past year. She says the search was related to drugs, though police would not confirm the nature of the investigation when contacted by Castanet.

According to Singh, many of the bylaw complaints have been related to noise.

“What they do is they play music really loudly, and that's the problem. And so bylaw gets called. They go and tell them to shut it down, and I get fined. I've got a stack of fines to pay and it goes on my taxes,'' she added.

Singh said the individuals arrested during Thursday’s operation were not her tenants, but were inside the home at the time the warrant was executed.

Castanet has reached out to Kelowna Bylaw Services for comment regarding their ongoing response to the property.