Canadian Realtor fined over $15K and suspended from job for sipping on milk from seller’s fridge

Real Estate

By Richard Pollina

August 1, 2023 | 7:25am

Udderly gross and guilty.

A Canadian real estate agent was slapped with a $15K fine after home surveillance footage captured him going into a client’s fridge between showings and laying his lips on the family’s milk container for a refreshing sip of vitamin D.

“This was unprofessional in so many ways,” seller Lyska Fullerton told The Washington Post.

Relator Michele (Mike) Rose had been waiting for a potential buyer at a client’s home in Kamloops, British Columbia, on July 16, 2022, when he began poking around the seller’s fridge.

Setting his sights on the family’s milk jug, he grabs it and takes a sip straight from the container before placing it back, believing no one would suspect the lactose lawlessness.

Unbeknownst to Rose, the seller had a Ring camera set up for her children in the living room, which caught him in the gross act.

The footage left Fullerton feeling “utterly speechless, in shock and creeped out.”

“Every part of it was just such an invasion of privacy and such an invasion of our home,” she told the outlet.

Fullerton discarded the now-tainted milk after viewing the alarming footage.

“My husband came back home and watched me throw half a gallon of milk in the trash,” she said. “He’s looking at me like I’m crazy and asked, ‘What are you doing?’”

“You don’t even want to know,” she replied.

To make matters worse, Fullerton shared that her camera also caught Rose inadvertently breaking the arm of her couch when sitting down on it on another occasion.

The seller says she confronted Rose after another viewing two days later — asking him if he’d wish to share anything with her about the previous visit.

Rose allegedly answered, “The milk?” according to the consent order released last Thursday.

Following the barebones confession, Fullerton submitted the footage to the British Columbia Financial Services Authority — an arm of the Canadian government that overlooks and regulates the Canadian province’s financial institutions.

“In what world do you think that this is ever okay to do?” Fullerton told the outlet. “I wouldn’t even do that in my own family’s home.”

Rose’s actions were described as “unbecoming” by the authority and fined the realtor 20,000 Canadian dollars — approximately $15,162, according to the order.

He is also being forced to pay almost $1,896 in enforcement expenses — with both fines needing to be paid within six months.

Rose was also immediately fired by Fullerton following her confronting him.

Rose called his actions a “very unfortunate, and very uncharacteristic, decision” in a statement with CFJC Today back in July 2022 — sharing he’s “never done this kind of thing before.”

“Although I have apologized directly to the homeowners, I know that actions like this are not quickly forgiven nor easily forgotten,” the milk-drinking agent said. “I will be spending the next few weeks considering my actions, better understanding why I would do this, and working to ensure this kind of [behavior] never occurs again.”

Rose was also suspended “until further investigation” from his position at Royal LePage Kamloops Realty, the real estate agency shared in a statement with the outlet.

It’s unclear if Rose has been reinstated.

The milk fiasco, fortunately, didn’t cause any issues with Fullerton selling the home, and she has since moved out.

“We sold it pretty quickly right after that, which is great,” she told The Washington Post. “Because the new people can go on and have new memories there, and we don’t have to stick with the memories of what happened.”

A study done at Clemson University in 2009 showed that milk drank directly from the container has eight times the number of bacteria floating in it versus milk poured into cups.

Milk drank straight from the container will also spoil faster.