Tenants of a rental building in New Westminster are rallying against appalling living conditions.
ACORN Canada organized a rally at 1210 Cameron St. on Thursday to highlight tenants' living conditions, which include mould, mice and a foul stench caused by a sewage leak.
"It's very stressful," said tenant Mary Cappell, whose cat has caught several mice in her suite.
According to ACORN Canada, the apartment's owners were recently fined $115,000 under the Residential Tenancy Act for failing to fix leaks at a building in Surrey that they own.
Don Watson, a member of ACORN, said the owners had a lot of repairs done in the days leading up to the rally, including painting over mould and graffiti, cleaning carpets in one hallway and making some plumbing repairs.
"They knew a bunch of folks were coming," he said of the rally. "They knew the media were coming."
Watson, whose fiancée pays $695 for a one-bedroom suite, said the apartment's conditions are appalling, but people do what they have to do.
"Poor folks ain't got a lot of options," he said. "It's easy to get poor, but it's hard to get out of poor."
ACORN Canada said the Cameron Street tenants have been struggling with poor building conditions for years. They planned the rally when the building was without running water for a week.
Keith Coueffin, the City of New Westminster's manager of licensing and integrated services, said city hall has received concerns about a number of maintenance issues in the past week to 10 days.
"The primary concern is the lack of hot and cold water throughout the building, the systems not being repaired promptly and properly, and numerous leaks throughout the building," he said.
Concerns have also been raised about issues related to fire safety, maintenance of common areas and other deficiencies.
"This is a top priority for bylaw enforcement," Coueffin said. "There have been multiple inspections."
