Residents of flooded apartment building still facing fallout from Canada Day storm

Diane Welshman had planned to celebrate Canada Day on Parliament Hill — at least until she noticed the rain “going sideways.”

“We ended up looking over the balcony, and that’s when we seen the puddle of water,” she recalled Monday morning, standing outside the entrance of her apartment building at 30 McEwen Ave.

“It was up above your kneecaps in the lobby.”

By the next day, Welshman said, water from the historic July 1 storm had receded, but for residents of the concrete tower at the end of a quiet dead-end street near Britannia Bay, the aftereffects of the flooding have persisted for months.

Parts of the lobby are now obscured behind sheets of plastic wrap. Through the ground floor windows, metal studs are visible where the interior walls have been stripped of drywall. Outside the front doors, yellow wires hang from a plywood ceiling.

“It was a terrible mess,” Welshman said. “I lost sleep over this situation.”

It’s not all she lost.

Welshman, who is on a disability pension and pays her rent with the help of a city housing benefit, returned to her apartment weeks after the flood to find her freezer had died when the power cut during the immediate aftermath of the storm.

“What a smell,” she said. “I told my sister Brenda, ‘Don’t open up the freezer door.’ And what’d she do? She opens the freezer door.”

Out rushed the smell of spoiled hamburger, chicken and fish.

All told, Welshman threw out five bags of food, hauling them to a nearby dumpster by way of a grocery cart borrowed from a friend in a neighbouring building.

The odour, she said, lasted about four days. Other issues have stuck around longer.

More than three months later, the laundry room remains off-limits, according to a recent letter sent to tenants from landlord Saickley Properties.

Hot water on floors two through eight only came back online early last month. Access to the mail room in the lobby was re-established on Sept. 9.

Meanwhile, the building’s outdoor pool, gym, sauna and locker room are still out of commission.

Residents were allowed to return to their homes on July 20, following extensive work to drain the water and remediate damage to the building.

Fifth-floor resident David Kenny stayed away until September, when his hot water was flowing again.

“Certainly July 1 sucked for everybody involved,” he said. “I understand it was a lot of expenses for Saickley, but what about the tenants? I mean, it sucked for us, too.”

Residents said they received a 20-day pause on rent for the period when they were evacuated.

At first, communication from Saickley was “bad,” Kenny said, adding management “seemed to be holding their cards very close to their chest.”

But their approach appeared to change, he said, shortly after tenant advocacy group ACORN put out a news release at the end of September calling for rent abatements, repairs and an “urgent resolution” to the loss of services at 30 McEwen.

Now, the landlord is sending routine updates.

Saickley Properties didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the holiday Monday.

But in a letter emailed to tenants on Oct. 8, building management quoted a lengthy summary of an opinion from the landlord’s legal counsel regarding the flooding.

“Based on the information provided to me as to the facts of this case, it is our opinion that the landlord cannot be held legally or financially responsible for the loss of amenities, as the discontinuance or interruption of the amenity services was through no fault of the landlord, and the landlord acted reasonably, expeditiously, and forthwith to move ahead with restoration of the building and all pertinent amenities,” the letter read.

“The landlord cannot be held responsible, as there was no delay or neglect on its part.”

Based on that assessment, Saickley Properties informed tenants it would not be providing rent credits or abatements for the loss of amenities but was nonetheless requesting “special consideration” from its insurance company to help compensate residents.

In the meantime, Saickley said it would hold off on annual rent increases for the rest of the year and that it didn’t “plan” to increase rent until it was confident all amenities had been fully restored.

Saickley also committed to allowing free use of the building’s laundry machines for at least four months, once the laundry room was operational.

“They’re doing some things,” Kenny said.

According to Welshman, all the “drama” caused by the Canada Day storm has convinced many tenants to flood for the exits.

Talk in the hallways suggests dozens have moved out already.

Welshman would too, but can’t afford it.

“Just gotta live with it,” she said. “Hopefully things will get done quick.”

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