B.C. condo owner successfully disputes claim he flushed cat litter down toilet

A person scoops litter from a box in this image. (Credit: Shutterstock)

A cat owner accused of flushing litter down the toilet in his condo shouldn’t have been charged for the pricey plumbing work required to repair the clog, a B.C. tribunal has ruled.

Yuangang Dai was charged over $5,000 for work done on his building’s pipes in 2023, according to a decision posted online Monday.

The strata council – which manages the common assets of the building – told the tribunal it applied the charge to Dai’s account because he had caused the obstruction by flushing litter.

Dai filed a claim with the tribunal disputing the charge and denying he was the culprit.

“He says he has been a cat owner for seven years. He says he knows better than to pour cat litter down the toilet,” tribunal member David Jiang wrote in the decision.

“He provided a video of someone, presumably himself, properly disposing of used cat litter in a trash can. He suggests that another person is secretly housing a cat in the strata, and they flushed the cat litter down their toilet.”

The strata, the decision explained, does have a bylaw in place allowing it to charge an owner for damage to common property – if it can prove the owner was responsible.

“The bylaws do not require Mr. Dai to be negligent, though I find flushing cat litter down a toilet would be a negligent in any event, being in breach of the standard of reasonableness,” the decision said.

In support of its claim that Dai was responsible, the strata submitted a plumber’s invoice and work order showing “wood chips and cat litter” were found and removed.

“Mr. Dai owns a cat, so I agree he is logically a candidate for the source of the cat litter,” Jiang wrote, also noting the documents “do not comment on the cat litter’s origin.”

The strata told the tribunal the plumber verbally informed them that Dai was responsible, but Jiang dismissed that evidence as inadmissible hearsay that was “not supported by the documentary evidence from the same source.”

The tribunal was not provided with any additional evidence about the building’s pipes or plumbing that showed it was more likely than not that the flushed litter could only have come from Dai’s unit.

Given that, the strata was ordered to reverse the $5,297.25 charge and to reimburse Dai $225 in tribunal fees.