Tenants deplore living conditions in Chateauguay apartment, say landlord hasn't fixed leaking roof in 2 months

Tenants of a Châteauguay apartment complex say for the past two months they’ve been living in uncomfortable conditions caused by a leaky roof, and they feel like the landlord is avoiding them.

When Michelle Holden came home on a June weekend, she says, she noticed a large, wet bubble in the ceiling of her dining room.

She says never thought that more than two months later, she would still be living with issues from it.

"I have a disgusting amount of mould, and when I come home and there’s rain, there’s water running down my hall," she said.

Inside her apartment, there is a large, leaky hole covered only with plastic.

Other units here also have issues: the roof on Jamie Lee’s balcony fell in last winter, which he said allowed a family of raccoons to get into his attic. In the winter, he says, he was hearing them in his ceiling, and told CTV the building hasn’t done anything about it.

"I've sent emails, no response. I’ve even tried to knock on their door, [but] nobody’s there. They sent me a concierge, he looked and even he’s fed up," he said.

Other tenants also have holes in their ceilings, and they also say management never gets back to them when they call to complain.

"The answering machine tells me to leave a message. I do and no one calls me back," said tenant Ghyslaine Bouthat.

The landlord, France Heroux, insisted she is taking the problems seriously, but says they still haven’t found where the roof is leaking from, and it’s been hard to find workers during the pandemic.

"We can’t find caretakers or contractors," she said, "and sometimes the ones we do find don’t want to go into an apartment building because they’re afraid to get COVID."

Heroux denied that management doesn’t return messages. She said many tenants are often late paying the rent and they’re the ones who are almost impossible to reach.

"It's give and take," said Heroux, who said someone is coming next week to fix the roof.