Residents at an apartment building on Caldwell Avenue in the Montreal suburb of Côte Saint-Luc are furious about a flood in the building earlier this month that affected several units on multiple floors.
“I walked in and water was flowing,” said Bonnie Lewis, a tenant who lives on the 11th floor.
“From my ceiling it was flooding, from the toilet it’s bubbling up,” recalled Yudit Pinsky, whose home is on the 10th floor. “All the water came out from the toilet.”
They say the flood happened in the early hours of Feb. 6 at the end of a series of extremely cold days in the city and the province, when overnight temperatures dropped to -30 C.
Lewis and others suspect the low temperatures were a factor in the flood.
“A pipe broke, I understand, up on the roof,” she told Global News, “and they’re telling me now it was the sprinkler system that broke.”
Tenants allege the pipe broke because there is not enough heat in the building, and there hasn’t been for years.
“I use the stove to warm up the apartment,” Pinsky said, sitting between two space heaters in her bachelor apartment.
With another set of cold days expected this coming weekend, residents are worried.
Because of flood damage, parts of some apartments have to be gutted and repaired, renters claimed, also alleging that so far they have no information about when that will happen or how long repairs will take.
Some, like Ruimy Abraham, whose rents are subsidized, argue that they are at the mercy of the building administration because they have limited options.
“I have to wait,” he said, adding that he just pays $500 in rent. “I don’t have nowhere to go. Where do you want me to go?”
The Côte Saint-Luc said it sent an inspector multiple times on the day of the flood to see that cleanup was being done.
One city official said the building administration promised to monitor the situation, and confirmed that the city intends to follow up with them.
Global News contacted the building administration for comment, but there was no response by deadline.