The purpose of this tool is to assist renters in assessing their units with the purpose of ensuring it meets the minimum property standards of their area. Unsurprisingly, many previously evaluated homes are found to be full of violations, including drafts, unsealed windows, leaky faucets and more.
Taking on average less than 15 minutes, this guided room by room assessment asks a series of questions to help you quickly spot issues, with all questions cross-referenced with your region's mandatory housing standards. Upon completing your assessment, a personalized report summarizing your home’s issues will be automatically generated. You can send this report directly to your landlord or use it to back up maintenance requests with confidence that repairs are soon on the way.
So, why complete a home assessment?
Improve your home’s energy efficiency, and in turn, cut down a major source of GHGs
Reduce your utilities costs
Improve your living conditions so they are safer and more enjoyable
Ensure your landlords are living up to the minimum expectations
Give yourself more credibility when approaching your landlords
It’s quick and easy to do
Be sure to check out the many other unique tools our website has to offer, relevant articles, facts, and resources to help you with housing disputes.
On the landing page click on the Start Now button. From there, select the country, then state or province, and if needed, the city. Many laws on housing standards are set at the state or province level, so you will only have the option for the "State or Provincial Standard" under city. All city regulations would build on that standard, however, if the city is available, you should select it, as sometimes they have additional laws or regulations.
Make sure you select the correct city or state / province as their laws are not relevant outside of them, no matter how close they are. For example, despite being surrounded by Los Angeles on 3 sides, and an ocean on the 4th, Santa Monica is it's own distinct city, so the Los Angeles bylaws would not apply there.
Next, the site will ask for information on your address and details on the property. This is for us to create a better dataset on the rental market. We want to look for trends in neighborhoods and landlords so we can better understand the rental market. We will never share individual submissions, and any data we publish will be on aggregate and contain no identifying features (addresses). If you still do not feel comfortable sharing your address, please put the address of your local city hall. We remove all submissions with a city hall address from our analysis.
After this, the site will ask you questions about the quality of your unit. Are their pests? Are their holes in the wall? You can add rooms to the assessment as you wish. If your response indicates a violation of your local laws, a text box will appear. You can then write the specifics to that violations, its location, when you noticed it, etc. We also recommend you take a photo of the violations or collect evidence of it.
When you are finished answering the questions, you can select "generate now". This will generate a report connecting the answers you gave with the local laws that are relevant to them. For example, if you indicated that there are mice in your unit, the report will reference the law which says landlords must ensure the property is pest free. You can see a sample assessment in our Blog & Research section. You can then use this assessment to inform your landlord they are in violation of local laws or for personal use. This assessment is not legal advice, and we encourage you to verify your findings with local experts.
The Home Standards Project was founded in 2021 by Nick Lorraway and Natalie Woodland in response to issues they had experienced with their rented properties while attending Queen’s University. We found that many were unaware of the bylaw standards and were accepting subpar housing as they believed that was simply what rental housing is like.
We hope that this project can benefit those who find themselves living in substandard housing. We believe that every renter deserves to have adequate housing and be able to easily understand their rights. We hope that this project will serve as a valuable tool for those seeking to better their circumstances.
On behalf of The Home Standards Project, we would like to extend a big thank you to everyone who has helped make this project possible. Notably, to Ozzie Kirkby, who has invested countless hours and patience into designing and building the website, Ricky Zhang for his exquisite design expertise and Michael Pirie for his tireless support in maintaining the site. None of them would accept payment for their services and we sincerely appreciate their passion and insight.
The Home Standards Project is a registered not for profit in Canada. The site is entirely volunteer run and no member of the team receives any compensation. All donations go towards maintaining the site and improving service in new regions. There is no profit motive whatsoever involved at The Home Standards Project. We do this because it matters.
If you have any further questions, comments, concerns, are interested in joining our team, or just want to chat, we encourage you to reach out to us at connect@homestandards.org or via the contact us form below. Let’s make our living conditions more enjoyable, safe, and energy-efficient.
Sincerely,
The Home Standards Project Team