The City of Toronto has ordered a landlord to clean up piles of trash which have been mounting outside a North York apartment complex for weeks after tenants complained about the squalid conditions.
A bylaw officer could be seen inspecting the property at 2460 and 2500 Keele Street Wednesday afternoon with building management.
Residents at the complex reached out to CP24 and said the trash at the building has been piling up for months, with animals roaming through the garbage and an unbearable stench permeating the units, especially the lower floors. CP24 spoke with five residents who all said the mound of trash at the building has been a growing concern.
“It is a nightmare,” one tenant who didn’t want to be named told CP24.
He said the garbage chutes inside the building are also sometimes filled with trash, and that the smell wafts through the halls in into the units, some of them occupied by families with small children.
“Flies come in whenever you enter the apartment,” he said.
He said calls to management about the problem have gone unanswered.
“We’re tired, we’re really very tired,” he said.
Another tenant who moved into the building about a year ago with his wife and three small children, said he was attracted by the size of the unit on one of the lower floors, and that garbage was not such a problem when they signed the lease. But now, he’s looking to move.
“It wasn't that bad, the smell wasn’t so bad,” he said. “But now it comes all the way to the rooms.”
He said he's seen coyotes and raccoons scavenging through the trash heap in the back and he’s worried for his kids.
“People throw bags of garbage and nobody's picking them up. You see flies, you see insects crawling into the apartments. It’s not good.”
He called the situation stressful.
“The health part is a risk, it’s uncomfortable because of the smell and it’s unsafe,” he said.
In an email, the city said that it is actively investigating the situation now.
“The City can confirm that they have four ongoing, waste-related investigations at 2460 Keele Street and 2500 Keele Street,” a spokesperson for Municipal Licensing & Standards said. “As this is an active investigation, we are unable to share more details at this time.”
Two Notices of Violation and one Property Standards Order had previously been issued to the building for waste-related complaints and they had corrected the problem, the city said. But it once again became an issue.
The city says it tries to bring building owners into compliance through the RentSafeTO program.
“Each issue is addressed on case-by-case basis to make sure reasonable and appropriate actions are taken,” the city said.
Fines around waste and pest problems and ignoring urgent service complaints can run anywhere from $400 to $600 for non-compliant landlords.
If the building does not comply with the new orders, the city could step in to clean up the trash.
It’s not entirely clear why the trash was not being taken away.
A superintendent on site told CP24 that it was difficult for trash to get collected from the building because cars sometimes block the driveway overnight due to a construction project on the building’s parking garage that has been ongoing for two years and has three more years to go.
A man who was identified as being part of building management could be seen helping to toss bags of garbage, ripping apart as they were moved, into a dumpster outside the building Wednesday. He declined to answer any questions. Another man used a shovel to move piles of overflowing trash into the dumpster and also declined to answer any questions.
The company which owns the building, Golden Equity Properties, lists an address in Montreal for their offices.
Multiple calls and emails for comment were not returned by the company, which lists other properties in Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton among its portfolio.
According to its website, Golden Equity Properties “targets value add oppotunities (sic) and is continuously looking to grow. We are active and hands on with our management and have been very successful increasing the value of every property in our portfolio.”
However the company is already the subject of a dedicated social media page which has for years been calling on it to be more responsive to tenant problems.
Old teddy bears and broken dolls, pizza boxes, rotting food and tires could be seen among the heap of garbage outside the Keele Street buildings, just feet away from some units.
Some tenants who spoke with CP24 did not want to be identified for fear of reprisal from management. They said it would be very difficult to find a new place to live with similar rent if management tried to evict them as retribution for complaining.
A one-bedroom apartment at the building is listed on the company’s website for $1,700 a month, much lower than the current market rate for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto, which now sits at north of $2,500 a month.
Tenants said the building also suffers from leaks, poor electrical wiring and long wait times for repairs. But the trash has been the most overwhelming and inescapable problem.
Residents outside the building spoke with CP24 Wednesday and said they are glad that the trash is finally being collected, but they hope that it does not pile up again.
“You know, it's smelly. It’s not sanitary for the building and you smell it on all the floors and in the elevator,” Carolina Martinez said. “They should really clean it more often.”
