A Toronto apartment building faces 84 city complaints. But the owner's appealing for more time to fix it

"We have rats," said Linda Hume, who's lived in the building for 24 years. "Never in my life have I had to deal with rats."

She says building management has given tenants sticky pads to trap the rodents.

"So the rat's not dead, and it's up to us to get rid of it," she told CBC Toronto.

"And they'll run all over the apartment — three in the morning, I have rats crawling up my curtains in the bedroom. It's horrifying."

Well that does, indeed, sound pretty horrible. Unfortunately poor living situations like these are all too common. Many landlords do not see the value in maintaining their properties to be in a good working order. Why? Money mostly. Older properties are expensive to maintain and, at the same time, have tenants who pay little in rent due to rent control. While I don’t see any of this as an excuse for having such appalling living conditions, these lines of thought are common excuses for landlords.

As for the owner of this building, I think the reason why they’re not putting money into the place is because of the excuses I listed earlier but also, the landlord, probably doesn’t want to hold the place for much longer. The long term plan is most likely to divest the place to a REIT. As such, there’s no incentive for the landlord to maintain the place.

Unfortunately for those who cannot afford to move (lower income residents, ODSP recipients) due to the absolutely bonkers market rate for rent, they’re stuck in this slum. They deserve better and I hope the city forces the landlord to actually, I don’t know, follow the law and maintain the place?

This is appalling. Also, when your landlord goes by 2 separate aliases in addition to their real name, you may not want to trust them.

Insane. Absolutely insane. The landlords in this city that run these shitholes are insane.

I lived at Main and Danforth for 20 years and this building been on the worst list for at least that long