Verdun senior kicked out of home after landlord cuts heat during renovations

Until today, Li Rong Qiu, 69, was the only tenant left at 300 Rielle Street in Montreal's Verdun borough. 

The quiet, comfortable home she's known for the past 13 years has been a nightmare these past few months after her landlord began major construction work that has left her building without heat and hot water since May.

On Monday, the borough of Verdun issued Qiu a 72-hour emergency evacuation order, giving her until Thursday to leave her home, because the building has been deemed unsafe due to the lack of heating. 

Jing Zeng, Qiu's daughter, says this seems to be part of the landlord's plan to renovict her mother. 

"Their goal is to get my mother to move out … and do the renovations and make the rent higher," she said. 

Zeng says a man named Yan Ohayon expressed interest in buying her mother's building in 2022 from her current landlord, Andrew Ciastek. 

CBC has reviewed the sale agreement in principle to transfer ownership of 300 Rielle Street to Ohayon, contingent on the ongoing construction work.

The work on the building began earlier this year, but Zeng says tenants were never informed and were frightened by the noise and the smell of gas.

The heating was cut soon after the mechanical room was demolished. 

"My mother is freezing," said Zeng. "They don't care about the people. They just care about money."

Landlord acted 'in good faith'

In February, Zeng says Ohayon gathered all the tenants and pressured them to sign lease-cancellation agreements and move out within three weeks. If they didn't, he said the city would order them to leave within 24 hours without compensation. 

Qiu is the only tenant who didn't sign. Since then, Ciastek has filed a lawsuit against her, which is still pending, Zeng says.  

CBC has reviewed multiple applications to the provincial housing tribunal (TAL) that call for Qiu's eviction over the past few months. Reasons include unpaid rent, an unsanitary apartment filled with vermin and urgent and necessary repairs that need to be performed in the unit. 

A document filed last week by Ciastek asks the tribunal to declare the building "unfit for habitation." 

Zeng denies her mother ever missed a rent payment and says the landlord was simply starting "rumours" about her unit in the hopes of getting her mother out. 

In an email to CBC News, Ciastek's lawyer says her client has "always acted legally and in good faith" toward Qiu. 

Lawyer Rachelle Urtnowski-Morin says Qiu was informed of the impossibility of heating the building and was offered temporary accommodation several weeks ago. 

"Unfortunately, Ms. Qiu and her lawyers have either declined or ignored our repeated offers to help," she wrote. 

Ohayon did not respond to a request for comment. 

'Really intense' tactics 

Housing rights activist Lyn O'Donnell says she's been working with Qiu and her daughter since February after receiving a number of calls from "very frightened tenants" at the building. 

O'Donnell, of the Citizen Action Committee of Verdun (CACV), says she went to meet with residents and was surprised by the amount of construction going on in the building. 

She says she met Ohayon at the scene and that he told her he'd evacuate the tenants in 24 hours if she reported what she saw to the city. 

"It was honestly the weirdest interaction I've ever had as an intervention worker," O'Donnell said. 

She says she called the city and was told they had no clue what she was talking about regarding an eviction order Ohayon had allegedly threatened residents with. O'Donnell was also told the building was deemed fit for people to live in. 

By that point, however, many of the tenants had already signed the lease cancellation "because they were terrified."

"These are tactics we see all the time, but this one was really, really intense," O'Donnell said. 

She says the city should have intervened when it was made aware of the issues.

O'Donnell is now calling for an immediate moratorium on all non-emergency construction permits, as they're given "too easily." 

"They saw this coming. The context needs to be taken in to account when giving permits. It cannot be so standardized," she said. 

"This manufactured urgency happened under the city's nose."

Borough says it did everything it could

Verdun borough councillor Kaïla Munro says the borough has conducted 31 inspections at Qiu's building since officials issued the construction permit in December 2022.

"The borough put in a specific mention in the permit that said that the work being done needed to take into account the rights of the tenants that were occupying the building," she said. 

Munro did not directly answer why then, after all the inspections, the landlord was able to remove the heating system in a way that lead to the evacuation notice.

She said the city issued fines to the landlord, but couldn't say how many or how much they totalled. 

"The landlord has a responsibility and the city had worked very hard in making clear what he needed to get done," she said. "They have to make housing habitable."

Munro added no one can can go in and fix the heating themselves. "It has to be the landlord that does this work." 

In response to the call for a moratorium on non-urgent construction permits, Munro says the move is "counterproductive."

"Not allowing landlords to do the work that they have to do … is not necessarily going to help our case here to make sure that housing is habitable," she said. 

Munro said Qiu's case is one the borough will look at to "improve our processes." 

The borough has provided Qiu with temporary accommodation for two months, but Zeng says she doesn't know what her mother will do if she does not get social housing after she's forced to leave yet another home.