I had the pleasure of meeting tenants from an InterRent apartment building up on the mountain, at 10 Ben Lomond Place.

Driving there, I was disturbed by the large park area all fenced off. This was a big complaint of many tenants in the building, that they had no recreation areas locally and their quality of living is being impacted negatively by it.

All these grievances seemed to juxtapose the mansion-style houses directly across from the fenced off park. Many tenants I met with today told me they have been given conflicting reasons of contamination or stalled contracts, but they seem to believe it is simply to disallow homeless people from accessing the park space in close proximity to the luxury houses, effectively making everyone suffer.

Tenants at 10 Ben Lomond Place expressed to me issue with pests, particularly bedbugs and cockroaches.

They expressed that their apartments often are uncomfortably hot as well as uncomfortably cold irrespective of the season. Management does not bleed the radiators and some do not operate properly at all, forcing some tenants to buy portable heaters, which adds to their expenses.

There are infrastructure issues like failing floors/ceilings, a failing water boiler, and unscrupulous Above Guideline Increases by the InterRent landlord to force tenants to pay for capital expenses – which should come from their average $2300 per 1 bedroom rental payment.

One older couple explained to me how they were coerced into effectively subsidizing capital expenses of the landlord by paying the $6000 for renovations to the balconies in their unit.

Tenants expressed to me that they are often intimidated by management, told to stay quiet about issues and told to “move somewhere else if they dont like it.” There are many elderly and tenants with complex needs who are experiencing living in the building as an environment of fear and not of peace and safety.

Tenants expressed to me that their building is not physically accessible and they indicated that management offered to “carry people out” instead of making the property AODA-compliant and fully accessible. For example, the fact the building has automatic door openers is moot when there is no truly accessible egress pathway for mobility-device or wheelchair users to navigate. This is a fire code issue and risks people dying if an emergency were to happen.

They also expressed that there are at least four emergency water shut-offs per month, which disrupts their reasonable enjoyment of their units consistently. One harrowing example of essential services being disrupted was when there was a power outage, and only some of the emergency lighting came on.

An elderly man fell in the then-pitch black stairwell as they were not illuminated adequately, and that man broke his hip and is now in the hospital long-term.

Finally, tenants also expressed that some have been targeted by management coercively for several rent increases. One example was given of an elderly couple who received four rental increase notcies in one year. As they did not know their rights, they unfortunately signed the form given to them by the landlord every time.

Thank you to Elizabeth Sweeting for introducing me to the tenant’s association in your building.

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