It is a pain in the ass. Let me tell you. I challenge just about anybody on this board to have more unregistered (and undeserving of registration) vehicles while living in an apartment building with 1 parking spot 
The stupid thing with bylaws is that they are usually enforced with little or no actual crime being committed. Like a good friend of mine, who had his dog destroyed. A kid hopped the fence, came into his yard and kicked his dog. The dog bit the kid, and chased him off the property. The dog was deemed a menace and destroyed. Kid got a lollipop and a few stitches.
Unfortunately your neighbor complaining to the city makes a strong case for the cars being “unsightly”. Because he whined, the city will consider them unsightly to him. Now that they have the complaint, someone will come by and take a picture. Someone else will look at the complaint, with the photograph, and decide whether or not you’re doing anything wrong.
Yes, legally you’re supposed to be making an effort to improve the cars. My friend had to put a false section in his fence and move his derelict cars to the backyard in suburban Mississauga, because the city felt his cars were bringing down the property value in his neighborhood.
The big deciding factor will be home ownership. As a tenant, you are automatically the bad guy if you’re having a dispute with a home OWNER. They pay property taxes, and are likely to be around next election. You are a tenant, probably (in their eyes) don’t vote, won’t be around long, etc.
But, the great thing is the Bylaw people are LAZY. That, and there’s probably only 2 officers on duty at any one time.
I found a great deterrent was to park so close to the unplated car with a car that has valid plates. If they have to come onto your property, get belligerent.
And I also had to do the following, but damn it eventually got the job done. One of my old neighbors had a huge problem with me, my wife and our cars. She was a tart. She used to have different guys crawling into her second floor apartment window 3 or 4 times a week. One time they broke my air conditioner, using it as a step ladder, then they also hit my Charger while trying to park a car between my car and the building to stand up on the roof and crawl in. She also had a doberman that was kept in a cage 24/7, barking, snarling and crashing the cage around. My landlord was scared of her, her boyfriend lipped off to my wife, (wouldn’t answer the door when I went to visit)
So we tied up the bylaw enforcement “snitch” line every chance we got. Long story short they took her dog away, she punched a cop, she went away. I got her parking spot (woot!) and it was all good.
Another thing to consider. Fake plates. Not even good ones. A half decent color print out glued to a piece of cardboard is really convincing from 20 feet.
I made a thread not too long ago about this. They’re called clunker laws in the States. Basically the gov’t will set a bounty on old cars. You crush em, you get a tax break. Also, because an unregistered car is considered un-owned, the city can come along and take the cars if they can see them.
Oh yeah, they want to bring the laws here next.
