| This problem is common in Toronto's condo underground garages. Thieves
travelling alone, or in pairs, ride down the garage ramps when the doors are opened. https://bit.ly/2LjDIK9 |
| I recently discovered that my condo building (downtown Toronto) has bed bugs. Did property management inform me? Nope. I saw a video in the community's Facebook group posted by another resident saying they have been infested for weeks, reported the issue immediately, and property management has been doing very little to help and actually trying to hide it from other residents because they didn't want to 'create a panic'. |
| As a result of their inaction, the bed bugs spread throughout the entire building (almost every floor out of 11 storeys, including the lobby, elevators and basement laundry room). They spread through the vents, on the outside of the building and through windows, and even through the cable conduits. It is now a massive wide-spread issue throughout the building, and even spread to the building next door. All of my possessions are currently in plastic bags or bins and I'm trying desperately to seal every crack around windows and baseboards with caulking. I've spent more than $50 on laundry in the last week alone and had to take time off work. I have to wash everything I wear and all my bedding every day and keep it in plastic bags. It has taken a huge mental and emotional toll. |
| Property Management has only started acting after residents organized, sharing experiences and realizing that we were being told different information and sometimes being lied to about the scale of the problem and when it was first reported. Management only recently agreed to issue a notice to all residents informing them of the scale of the issue (you would think this would be a basic first step when the first residents report a problem). They refuse to post the notice publicly in lobbies and elevators, probably because they are worried about property values. I have seen realtors with clients (there are several units for sale and lease) and delivery people coming through the condo over the past week and I'm sure they have no idea. |
| Management also refuses to cover any of the costs related to the bed bug infestation and says they are the residents' responsibility. They will only spray affected units, which just spreads bed bugs further outwards to adjacent units. The pest control company they've hired seems to be the cheapest option and has very few online reviews. They won't do heat treatment which is a more effective (and expensive) option. Some of the owners are now considering a class action or some type of legal action to recover the thousands of dollars in costs this has incurred so far. It's particularly ridiculous because the property management fees are very high (almost $1 per sq ft). |
| I'm at the point where it seems like there is no choice but to move. This infestation is so huge that it's hard to envision it being totally controlled anytime in the near future, and I don't want to live out of bags for the next year (which is how long bed bugs can survive without food). |
| Walsh said Delestre worked at the condominiums for years and was selling numerous jewelry items to pawn shops. https://bit.ly/2K2q098 |
| But in the year since it opened, most of the grass has turned a crispy brown or disappeared altogether, which makes it far less welcoming. |
|
“It’s become a signature location for tourists, office workers,
families, etc. But it’s disgusting and I haven’t been able to
specifics,” from the city about why the grass has died, said
Fine. (The Answer? Gallons of dog urine.) https://bit.ly/2mql2JY |
| My son and I had left our unit to take a bag of trash to the garbage chute. Then we headed to take the stairs down to play outside. I opened the stairwell door and my young son did as he always does and charged ahead. There on the floor right in front of us was a woman with a needle hanging from her shin. We’d interrupted her injection. |
| And there she was, in our building’s staircase, just a few feet away from my condo door. https://bit.ly/2LL9UlX |
| In a statement to Global News, the strata council said the resident who made the complaint is a member of the council, (condo board member) as well as a member of the clubhouse committee. It also said it is investigating the incident. |
|
“The enquiry of this should not have occurred in this manner,” the
council said. “Steps are currently being taken to remove that committee
member from the clubhouse committee based on their actions in
overstepping their boundary.” https://bit.ly/2mhE596 |
| The development is a 30-storey highrise at the southeast corner of Burnaby and Thurlow streets that will have separate lobbies and amenity areas for condo dwellers and residents of the social housing component of the project. |
| Public concerns were about the separate entrances for the market and social housing, as well as the separated children's play areas. |
| “There was concern that this would result in social isolation and stigmatization of the residents in the social housing units,” Hoese noted. |
|
The 39 social housing units will be on levels one to eight of the
building. Above them, from levels nine to 30, will be 82 condos. https://bit.ly/2L8T1Bf |
| Officers were called to a
parking garage near Park Lawn Road and Lake Shores Boulevard just
before 4 p.m. on Saturday. (This area has a large number of condos
high-rises.) |
| The victim, a 29-year-old man who had been severely assaulted, was located a short time later. |
| Paramedics say they rushed the man to a trauma centre with life-threatening injuries. https://bit.ly/2KUv4S0 |
|
Real estate lawyer Robert Noce said it's not entirely unusual for
condominium projects to be cancelled before completion, due to slow
sales. https://bit.ly/2N9m2gz |
| When the first of the micro-loft condo units were approved, the thinking was that for people living in them, downtown coffee shops, restaurants and open spaces would be their living area. |
| (Are they kidding? In Toronto the all-night coffees shops, fast food joints and open spaces are the living area for the homeless.) |
|
“Then we started to find out that people were using them for short term
vacation rentals (Airbnb) and when I asked [why], they would say
they’re not livable for long term because they’re so small,” said Coun.
Charlayne Thornton Joe at a recent meeting of councillors. “So that is
to me creating a concern.” https://bit.ly/2KZRErz |
| But while inhabitants of cushy apartments may see all of this as a quick and easy way to monetize their apartment space, others fear that hourly rentals are little more than a means of subverting existing regulations, while opening up a condo or co-op community to an array of liability headaches. |
|
It all comes back to the question of security, something for which residents of co-ops and condos frequently pay a premium. https://bit.ly/2ur5FVg |
| Walter Stolper was in the midst of being evicted from his Miami Beach
condo this week when a resident complained about smelling gas in the
building. https://bit.ly/2mfB8Wv |
| It is gratifying to see that
the adjudicators have caught on to some of the games the condo boards
and managers use to prevent owners from seeing the corporation records. https://bit.ly/2lWPBGN |
| My take on three of these decisions can be found here: http://www.condomadness.info/CAT.html |
| Toronto's condo developers paid the city hundreds of millions in
development fees. Then the city collected
hundreds of millions more in land transfer fees. Where did all that
money go? Why was it not used to rebuild water and sewage lines, build schools and widen sidewalks? |
| Now Councillor Josh Matlow and
others say developers shouldn't build any more condos in this area
because the city infrastructure can't handle additional growth? https://bit.ly/2KTkUjY https://bit.ly/29AyN2p |
| When construction ends, a small membership fee — equivalent to the
condo maintenance fee toward use of the gym and pool — will allow
tenants access to the amenities in each new condo. https://bit.ly/2MUMFpC |
| He replaces Tracy MacCharles as Minister of Government and Consumer Services and Yasir Naqvi who held Special Parliamentary Responsibilities. |
| I don't think that the NDP has formed their shadow cabinet as yet. |
| An Ottawa couple found a stranger in scrubs in the unit of their west-end condo building in March; imagine their surprise when she showed up again this past Saturday. |
| Barbara says another tenant woke from a nap to find a strange woman wearing scrubs in her bathroom. https://bit.ly/2z0EkPb |
| So finally, maybe, this condo will get built. https://bit.ly/2IwVwLv |
| 00 |
Reliable sign of a condo in decline. Official notice placed in elevators: "Desperately need Proxy Forms" Free food and drinks provided! |
| Few plan to attend the AGM. Massive owner apathy is apparent after compounded fee increases of 38% over 3 years. #condofraud |
| Someone with knowledge of the case told KPRC that the HOA debit card
that only Warth had access to, was used more than 700 times for
personal use and expenditures amounting to nearly $100,000. https://bit.ly/2LWgKp0 |
