A Moncton tenant has taken to Reddit to express worries about finding an apartment under $900 and a Toronto landlord raising the price on his basement apartment from $760 to a whopping $1,100 per month.

Toronto tenants may have conflicted feelings about this. One the one hand, experiences with landlords raising rents out of the blue are not uncommon.

On the other hand: You were paying $760 a month for an apartment! No wonder Moncton has been luring Toronto tenants to the banks of the Petitcodiac.

"I have been renting a basement for the last 2 years," the original post says, "but now the owner is selling the place to a vulture from Toronto and the asking price for the rent after the change of ownership is going from $760, all included, to $1,100."

"Almost tempted to buy a van and park myself on the University parking to use the gym for showers, their WiFi and then move to restaurants for the washrooms."

The original poster (who goes by WelbyGreen and wishes to remain anonymous) tells blogTO that when he was searching for apartments two years ago, there were "plenty" of options around $700. He says he was told last month that the owner of the place he rents told him the house was being purchased in July. 

He's going back to school in September to become a teacher, and wanted to beat the rush of students going back to university in person. Now, most places he looks at are over $900, often without utilities included.

"The sudden rise in prices was making it very stressful in these pandemic times to find a place that I could afford while working part time," the original poster tells blogTO.

"The prospect of being forced to work full time and sacrifice my studies almost pushed me to opt for an alternative way of living: the van idea. For my search I used all the website available: Kijiji, corporate renting, local realtor sites, etc., and went looking around for signs in the city, finding nothing in my price range."

The rent prices discussed in the thread may cause a little pang in the hearts of Toronto residents. All the helpful Moncton people in the replies were citing examples of apartments in the New Brunswick city way under $1,000 per month.

Reaching out about his personal story ended up connecting WelbyGreen to an apartment for significantly less than $1,100. The old apartment was in Moncton centre, and the new one is outside the town centre in the north east.

When approached by blogTO through WelbyGreen, the landlord declined to comment.

"Thanks to the Reddit community I was able to be connected to a person willing to rent me a nice one-bedroom apartment, all included for $750," says the original poster.

That's right, a one-bedroom apartment for $750. Well done, Welby.

Sounds like a dream to many people in Toronto. If only there was a fairy godlandlord out there like WelbyGreen's new one in Moncton for all of us.