Bedbugs And Cockroaches Force Tenants Into Parking Lot
Posted August 16, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Cockroaches the size of spoon heads and ravenous bedbugs embedded in mattresses have forced some residents out of their apartments in the Kipling and Lakeshore area. But their conditions didn’t exactly improve once they decided to ditch their living quarters.
Nicole Priaulx is one of the disgruntled renters who now calls the back parking lot of the complex home. She’s one of two people who have taken the extreme measure of living in a tent to avoid the ravages of the bugs. Now she sleeps next to a pile of garbage infested with mice and raccoons and is forced to use the bathroom at a nearby donut shop.
It’s not exactly a glamorous lifestyle, but it’s one Priaulx says she was forced into accepting after her problems were exacerbated when an exterminator destroyed nearly all her furniture with a chemical spray. She’s since sent her kids away and thrown the rest of her tainted belongings out. “I just moved in two weeks ago. I’ve lost everything,” she says sobbing.
“That’s our bed,” she said, pointing out the awkwardly erected tent. “I don’t even know what’s going to happen, basically the dining room table is the only thing I have left.”
The landlord says he offered the ousted tenants a place to stay but they declined.
In the meantime, Priaulx says she has called Toronto Public Health officials, but can’t afford to move out, and says she’ll stay with a friend until the bug problem is fully rectified.
