I think after reading these articles that landlords definitely have legitimate complaints. Though if you talk to tenants, they also have many legitimate complaints. It all depends on who you are talking to at the moment. Every group of people are always going to have a few bad ones who give the good ones a bad name.
I think the biggest complaint from landlords would be about tenants who deliberately skip out on their rent obligations and maliciously damage their units. How much money and how long does it take for the landlords to get their money back, if they are able to at all. Another complaint I noticed from the article, was that landlords were worried about being blindsided from tenants who show up with disputes, at the last minute - either real or imagined.
One comment I really agreed with in the article was - if you do not pay your car payment, your car will be repossessed; if you do not pay your cable bill, it will be disconnected - what is the landlord's recourse? Tribunals. All of which takes time, and the tenant lives rent free while waiting for the process to happen.
I do not think that professional tenants are a problem. I think like bad landlords, you will always have those few bad apples that ruin it for everyone else.
I have rented for a lot of my adult life and have been fairly lucky with landlords, though I always try to be a good tenant. I have heard a few horror stories though. People who can never get a hold of their landlord. A tenant whose landlord would never turn her heat on.
Last winter in Hamilton, one of the buildings here had a problem. The gas company cut off the heat because the apartment building itself did not pay the bill. The whole building had no heat. Finally the city stepped in because these people were going weeks in the middle of winter with no heat. They were paying their rent, so it was through no fault of their own.
Finally, landlords exchanging information could be a good thing, if it was kept in context. People's privacy rights cannot be violated - under any circumstances. People have to accept the facts that tenants can run into a bad period of time and can turn their lives around. You cannot hold something against someone forever. But when it comes to looking for those professional tenants, this may be the way to help each other search them out.