Building residents despair

Families live in fear after 3 men shot to death in parking lot Toronto Housing Corp. boss says major renovation needed

Cockroaches, mice, gaping holes in apartment walls, broken lights, broken locks, no security, hallways that smell of urine and three men fatally shot in the parking lot on the weekend. That’s the situation at 75 Tandridge Cres. Some residents at the problemplagued building said they live in fear after the weekend shootings, which only added to their despair over the living conditions.

Safi Sadiq can see the light from the hallway through his kitchen wall. “ At night when it’s dark you can see the light to the hall,” he said, as he opened his kitchen cupboard. “The floor flooded from the leaking pipes,” he added.

In the hallway outside his door, agaping hole has been hacked in the hall to fix leaking pipes, giving an open view into the vacant apartment next to his. The outside hallway is also visible from under his sink, a conduit for a continuous parade of mice and bugs. He’s taped over the area with plastic to keep out the bugs and the stink of the hallway.

“ The smell is very bad,” he said. “The air vents don’t work.” “ We don’t have a buzzer downstairs and the intercom doesn’t work,” he said. “ Too many mice and cockroaches. I call every day, they say today or tomorrow they will fix it. They never come.”

Sadiq who has lived in the apartment with his wife Ghuncha and sons Sahim, 15, and Navid, 10, for four years, said he can’t move because he can’t afford it. “ Low income. And the rent here is $290 for a two- bedroom apartment, with parking and everything,” he said. And now his family is afraid because of the recent gun violence close to the neighbouring school.

“ We heard the shooting. But we didn’t see anything,” said Sadiq who came to Canada from Afghanistan 24 years ago. He makes his sons stay in at night now. “Cockroaches fall from the cupboards. The carpets in the hallways stink. It’s terrible,” said Sadiq, who works as a part- time cleaner.

“ I’m mad as hell,” said local Councillor Rob Ford, who took a Toronto Star

reporter on a twohour tour of the building yesterday. “ I’m mad at the MLS ( Municipal Licensing and Stan-