The long-running saga of an illegal hostel in North Vancouver took what neighbours call a bizarre and disturbing twist last Saturday.
That’s when neighbours say Emily Yu, who was evicted and forced to sell her home after a multi-year court battle with her former strata, arrived with moving trucks and tried to move back into the townhouse.
“I felt like maybe she’d been cowed by having been arrested, and maybe this was the end of it and maybe we could carry on living in peace,” neighbour Daniel Goldberg told Global News.
“I guess maybe I was naïve, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised — but I was kind of surprised to see her again.”
Yu was evicted from the property in December, and in February, the B.C. Supreme Court approved the sale of Yu’s townhouse after a four-year legal dispute over Yu converting the property to a 15-bed hostel.
The new owners have taken possession, but haven’t moved in as they prepare the property for renovations.
That’s why Goldberg was shocked to see a U-Haul pull up in the alley behind the property Saturday evening.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘oh no, that’s Emily Yu.’ And she opens the door, and walks out of there and walks into the house like she owns the place. It was like nothing had changed — she had brought her things, walked into the house as if she were ready to move in,” he said.
“And not a few minutes later a moving van moves up with a crew of movers and they started unloading stuff. I was just shocked, I could not comprehend anyone would be so brazen.”
Goldberg took out his phone and began filming, as a woman in a mask directed movers around the property. He says he heard her voice and saw her with her dogs, and is 100 per cent sure the woman was Yu.
He called police, but said Yu made a “quick exit” before they arrived.
North Vancouver RCMP confirmed they attended the property, and that they had arrested someone. Police did not confirm the identity of the person arrested, and could not speak to potential charges.
In a statement, Yu denied the townhouse was no longer her property.
“It is my resident (sic) now. Except, due to property title fraud, the property title fraudulently changes to a third party without my consent,” she claimed.
Yu also denied she was at the property on April 10.
Goldberg said Yu was violating a restraining order, and that she was breaking and entering as well. He said it’s unclear how she got into the home, but suspects she used a sliding patio door or window.
“The way she walked in there I figured she must have had a key, because she had no obstructions whatsoever to entering, but apparently the locks have been changed and she made her way in, in spite of that.”
It would not be the first time Yu came in conflict with the law over the property.
In October, a B.C. Supreme Court Judge rejected Yu’s claims of identity theft and court file fraud as “made-up nonsense.”
Over the course of the legal dispute, she was found to be in contempt of court, and in November 2020 she was arrested after allegedly refusing access to the property to a bailiff, a realtor and a potential buyer.
But Goldberg said the latest twist was an escalation that made him nervous for his family and his own property.
“She definitely holds a grudge and she feels like she’s the victim and she’s been aggrieved … Honestly I don’t know what she has left to lose, and when people are in that situation they can be dangerous,” he said.
The situation has also made him frustrated with the legal process that despite an arrest, a legal order to stay off the property and nearly $150,000 through court-awarded costs appears not to have deterred Yu.
“I don’t know what it’s going to take for it to end, to be perfectly honest at this point. There’s no stopping her. She’s like the T-1000, she’s coming.”