What was once a home on the corner of Juno Street and McDermot Avenue is now a pile of rubble, having caught on fire Friday morning in a blaze that injured a firefighter.
The city has since torn down the home and fenced off the corner lot property in Winnipeg’s West End.
The air still smelt of burnt wood Saturday morning.
Now, an adjacent business owner is conflicted about the two-and-a-half storey house that burnt down near his store.
“I had such a mix of emotions. To be honest, I was angry, I was happy, a little sad because I just see this situation happening over and over and over again in this area particularly,” said Rick Shone.
Shone, who owns Wilderness Supply on Isabel Street, said the house has been an issue since he moved his business into the inner city storefront three years ago — with garbage and used needles piled in the yard and alleyway in which nearby children ride bicycles and play.
However, the blight came to a head in the past year.
“The first thing I noticed was just an abundance of garbage in the back lane. We were finding needles all over the place. I personally would spend a little bit of time cleaning up every day,” he said.
“It just started to get overwhelming — piles and piles and piles of garbage — there was no possible way unless I was bringing trucks in here to get rid of it.”
Shone and others in the area attempted to deal with the apartment house — Shone called 311 dozens of times, he said. He contacted the area’s city councillor.
He says nothing of substance was done, though the garbage piled in the yard was sometimes cleaned up — but trash returned in short order.
“Really I just started to see that there was actually no method of actually solving the problem — it was a Band-Aid on the issue,” Shone said.
The property’s owner and landlord, Aubrey Greenberg, said the six suite apartment house was overtaken by a “gang” about a year ago after the granddaughter of two of his elderly tenants coopted the property.
Greenberg said he was unable to evict the paying tenants for the past year, while the house became a squat for drug use.
Needles piled while people slept on the house’s stairwells.
The people squatting in the house were not his tenants — and weren’t paying rent, Greenberg said, noting he was fearful of the people living inside while feeling powerless to boot them from the house.
This past week, however, Greenberg did close down the property with the help of Manitoba sheriffs — boarding the property in the process.
But that didn’t stop the fire in the then-vacant home Friday.
“In one way (the fire was) the solution to this problem, but it’s pretty disappointing,” Shone said, pointing to the age of the house that was built in 1898.
“When you find a house like this, it really does bring the neighbourhood down. … It only serves to reinforce the opinions that other people in this city have about this area and it’s disappointing because I don’t think it’s an accurate depiction of the people who live in this area as a whole.”
Shone wants to see the city do more to help the neighbourhood — with increased trash pick up and help for landlords to evict problem tenants.
“When a group of people comes and overtakes a house, everybody’s fearful. The neighbourhood’s fearful, the landlord’s fearful, nobody wants to go there because they think they’re going to get hurt,” Shone said.
“I’m realistic, there’s lots of things to take care of but this area needs a little bit more help.”
The burnt-out house is expected to be a total loss and the cause is not yet known, the city said.