Two weeks later, some tenants remain without heat in bitter Montreal cold

Montreal has witnessed one of the coldest Januarys in years, and tenants in one east end building say they've had to confront the bitter cold with no heat.

Lynne Hostein has been waiting 14 days for the heat to come back on in her building on Sherbrooke St. East.

She spoke to CTV News when her heat first went out and was being worked on.

It's still out and she's at her wit's end.

"You can’t make this stuff up," said Hostein.

Hazelview Properties runs the building and said a pipe burst in the garage last week starting the problem that got worse.

"What delayed our efforts to get it fully resolved was that Hydro Quebec also had an outage in the area, which knocked out the power at those four blocks," said Hazelview Properties vice president Colleen Krempulec.

Housing advocate Margaret Van Nooten of Project Genesis said the situation breaks a building code.

"According to the Montreal housing code, landlords must keep housing at a minimum of 21 degrees Celsius," she said.

John Castell lives in the building and said he wants compensation.

"I’ve started to think about it and I’m probably going to have to take them to the Regie," he said.

Getting compensation, however, can be difficult.

"It can be tricky to get that sort of compensation," said Van Nooten. "You have to get proof, so you need to be measuring and recording, possibly with a witness."

Tenants were given space heaters, but the one Hostein was given tripped the circuit breaker.

The timeline is unclear as to when the heating will be fixed, but the company said if tenants want to relocate until then, it's willing to do that to another one of their properties.