Rent and Renovation – English Language Bits

Match these words with their meanings below.

You can type the words or copy & paste them. Check your answers by clicking Submit at the end.

renovation – innovation – transportation – maintain – unit – major – notice – inconvenient

to keep something in good condition by checking and repairing it regularly –

large or important –

causing problems –

apartment –

a new idea –

moving people or things from one place to another –

repairing a building so that it looks better and/or is more convenient –

information about something that is going to happen –

Time is Up!
Time’s up

Fill in the missing words in the text. You can type them or copy & paste them.

You can check your answers by listening or by clicking Submit at the end.

innovation – while – unit – major – leak – maintain – notice – increase

Yuliya: You mentioned renovation, do they increase rent when they do those renovations?
Ralph: Yes, if the renovation is major, if it’s like a really serious repair to the building or, for example, when they put that door into the basement, when they repaired all of the balconies and did repair work on all of the balconies, the company that owns the building, they apply to the government to raise the rent more than normal.

Normally the rent, the percentage of the rent is decided by the government of Ontario.

For this older building they decide the rate for all the rentals. It depends on inflation, so normally we’re paying about maybe 2% more every year. But if they did major repair work, we could be paying 3.5% or one year we were paying 4% more, so that was not great. But they do the building really well. It’s very clean.

Everything is by the book, so they’re always following the rules exactly. When they want to enter your apartment, they give you the proper ahead of time. When they need to inspect things, they do all the inspections on time, and they let you know.

Recently they installed heat pumps. A heat pump is a type of heating and cooling unit. So in the past we just had baseboard heaters to heat the unit, and if you wanted to cool the you needed to buy a window air conditioner, but they installed new units in the wall, and these units are… they can heat the main room in the winter and they can cool it in the summer.

Yuliya: Can you control the temperature in your unit, in your room?
Ralph: Yes.
Yuliya: Oh, that sounds great!
Ralph: It’s an energy saving , energy saving device. And, so, they always seem to be doing those kinds of things. Of course, our rent is going to increase to pay for this. But, if we moved somewhere else, our rent would increase much much much more. We’ve lived here for a very long time, and when you move out of a unit, the new tenant has to pay a much higher rent. So if we moved, we would have to pay much higher rent. So we will probably stay here for a while.

Ralph: Ehh, it’s OK. It’s a bit old, but we did have some problems with our windows, and we had two windows replaced. They cracked, don’t know why. And we did have some water ing at one point, from a pipe, but they were very quick to fix that. So generally, pretty happy, we’ll see.

Yeah, it would be nice to have a washer and dryer in the unit, and it would be nice to have another bedroom, but our balcony is so great, and the light is so great, and the location is so great, that I think we’ll stay here for a .

These questions can help you practice speaking or writing.

About the story:

How does the cost of rent change after a renovation in a unit or a building?

What are some general rules on rent increase in Ontario?

How often can rent increase?

How much can it increase?

Who decides on the maximum limit for the increase?

Why can increases sometimes go over the limit?

What are some other rules that landlords need to follow?

What does Ralph like about their apartment building?

How was the heating system recently updated in the building?

What other function does the new heating device have?

How likely is Ralph to move to another apartment in the near future? Why?

What about you?

Do they often do any renovations at the place where you live?

Why may they start renovations?

Who usually pays for such renovations?

What would you like to see renovated?

What would happen to the rent cost?

Would you like to move?

How would the new place be different from this one?

Who may think that limits on rent increase are good?

Who may have a different opinion? Why?

Find the best sentence for each of these words.

You can type the words or copy & paste them. Check your answers by clicking Submit at the end.

storage – renovation – innovation – transportation – maintain – unit – major – notice – inconvenient

Landlords are responsible for -ing their buildings.

If you want to quit the job, employers usually expect a two-weeks’ .

Climate change is a problem that we need to address as soon as possible.

Friday is for me. Could we meet on another day?

We need in our company to keep producing the best quality product.

I do not want to live here during the . There will be too much noise and dust for a month or two.

Major Canadian cities have good public systems.

Our apartment building is very small, there are only 12 -s.

Rent and Renovations