Tom Durning of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre in Vancouver said he was shocked when he learned nearly two dozen residents of the Westmont Apartments in Fort St. John had been living without heat for three months as the northern B.C. deep freeze settled in, driving temperatures down to -40 C.
"This company, I'd never heard of them, and I don't know how long they've had [the building], but if they bought it within the last year and they know they have an archaic system, and they know its unstable, it's common sense that you would do your repairs on your heating system before the early onset of winter," said Durning.
The heat at Westmont has been restored. The building's owner, Northern Property Real Estate Investment Trust, said it had been trying to fix the building's broken boiler since September, but ran into delays finding contractors to do the work and outsourcing replacement parts from far outside the region.
The company had offered space heaters to tenants in the interim, and promised to reimburse tenants 33 per cent of their electricity bills for September, October and November, and credit them with a half-month's rent.
Tenants who asked not to be named who live in another of the company's buildings in Dawson Creek with a similar problem were also given space heaters.
But Durning says the city needs to follow the lead of Lower Mainland cities and enact "standard of maintenance" bylaws that ensure buildings are maintained to health and life safety standards.
Vancouver, Victoria, Vernon and Delta, among others, all have this bylaw on the books, spelling out basic levels of heat, water temperatures, electricity and other essential utilities, among others. Landlords who fail to comply can face fines if offences repeat or persist, and municipalities have the power to undertake maintenance measures. “[The bylaw] tells your landlords if you're going to run a rental apartment, you're going to run it properly, or we're going to be on your case."
Westmont residents said the long wait for heat was just one issue in a list of many over a lack of maintenance in the building – jammed doors, unshovelled walks, burst pipes and little to no communication with tenants.
