Renters rally over cockroach, mice infestations and disrepair in Halifax housing

Heather Dunham says every morning when she goes to make tea, she’s faced with a dozen or so cockroaches crawling around her counter.

At night, she says she’s kept awake by the sounds of rodents scurrying around her home.

“I mentioned it to the landlord, and the (building) supervisor… they say: ‘we’ll get to it, we’ll get to it.’ And I never see them,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

“It’s hard on my breathing with the mouse poop everywhere and the cockroaches… I’m terrified, I’m just terrified,” Dunham said.

The single mother who lives in the Halifax neighbourhood of Spryfield is among a group of Halifax tenants who say they are fed up with chronic infestations in their homes and say their landlords are neglecting to deal with the cockroaches, bed bugs and rodents.

Some of these tenants attended a rally outside Dunham’s building Wednesday, organized by housing advocacy group ACORN.

Dunham’s son, Martin Gorman, said when he went to pour himself a bowl of cereal this morning, “all I got out of the box was roaches.”

Dunham and her son have lived in the Spryfield apartment for about 11 years. She said despite many requests to her landlord for help eradicating the pests and to repair damage in the apartment, there hasn’t been any action.

After a flood in her basement apartment almost two years ago caused by plumbing issues in the building, Dunham said the landlord would not help clean up the water for months, leaving her to deal with it on her own. She said the carpets have still not been replaced, and, at one point, mold and mushrooms grew from the floor.

Gorman said it feels like the landlords are intentionally neglecting their tenants as a way of driving them out so they can renovate the empty unit and charge a higher rent.

“I honestly think he’s trying to push us out of the building,” he said.

Dunham said they would move out, but she can’t find any other affordable rent in the area.

“Somebody should step in, somebody has to help us,” she said, adding that the municipality should do a better job at enforcing property standards bylaws to protect tenants.

Halifax resident Harold Kierstead said he attended Wednesday’s rally on behalf of his friends that he says are living in deplorable living conditions and were not able to make it out to the event.

“Bedbug infestations, cockroaches… doors that aren’t working right, don’t lock properly. People are getting tired of paying rent for this,” he said, referring to friends living in a large apartment building across the harbour in Dartmouth.

Rally attendees chanted: “No more roaches, no more mice. Fix our homes and fix them right” outside of Dunham and Gorman’s building.

ACORN member Mariah Baker said it’s hard to know how many tenants in the city are dealing with infestations and homes that are in disrepair, but the group is aware of several densely-populated buildings in the area that have pests.

“From speaking to our members, it sounds like there are a number of landlords that aren’t doing anything despite this being reported,” Baker said.

The group says the municipality needs to immediately step up its enforcement of property standards bylaws and hold landlords that fail to provide adequate living conditions accountable.

Halifax Regional Municipality did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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