24 Hours Vancouver: Surrey residents fed up with building conditions

Sue Collard said she’s an “old coot” that just wants to live without the constant smell of mould, the itching of fleas and the streams of water flooding into her apartment’s suites.

She’s lived in the “rot” of Kwantlen Park Manor at 12975 106 Ave. in Surrey for the past six years, and said it’s time the government made the landlords – the same owners of DTES’s run-down Balmoral, Cobalt, Regent and Astoria hotels – do something.

“There are persistent leaks in this building,” Collard said. “My next-door neighbour puts two-litre margarine tubs on the floor.”

In the last two years, she’s taken the complaint up with the provincial Residential Tenancy Branch in hope of penalizing her landlords, but with few results. Instead, Surrey Coun. Judy Villeneuve is scheduled to meet with the tenants Wednesday to see if the city has any jurisdiction to help.

Sue Collard said she’s an “old coot” that just wants to live without the constant smell of mould, the itching of fleas and the streams of water flooding into her apartment’s suites.

She’s lived in the “rot” of Kwantlen Park Manor at 12975 106 Ave. in Surrey for the past six years, and said it’s time the government made the landlords – the same owners of DTES’s run-down Balmoral, Cobalt, Regent and Astoria hotels – do something.

“There are persistent leaks in this building,” Collard said. “My next-door neighbour puts two-litre margarine tubs on the floor.”

In the last two years, she’s taken the complaint up with the provincial Residential Tenancy Branch in hope of penalizing her landlords, but with few results. Instead, Surrey Coun. Judy Villeneuve is scheduled to meet with the tenants Wednesday to see if the city has any jurisdiction to help.

“We’re not going to have a Downtown Eastside,” Villeneuve said. “There’s been a lot of energy put into making sure that doesn’t happen.”

Cozetta Bowden, another resident, said the mould from the leaks is so bad her family’s been treated for respiratory infection since moving in last October.

“My daughter was off school for a month and my doctor was pretty much convinced we were being exposed to something,” she said. “I had to take puffers with antibiotics and everything.”

The building owners, Pal and Gurdyal Sahota, did not return calls by press time. It’s not the first time, however, they’ve been accused of neglecting building maintenance.

Paul Martin, co-president of the DTES Neighbourhood Council, said the Sahota’s four DTES buildings still require “a lot of improvement” as mice and bedbugs continue to be a problem.