Montreal tenants evacuated from Lachine apartment due to imminent fire risk

A residential building in Lachine was evacuated last week due to an imminent fire risk – a month after the city had to step in to restore heat and hot water to the building, which lacked the essentials for weeks – as the landlord has been unreachable.

On Thursday, 35 residents in the apartment building were evacuated by the Montreal Fire Department.

“I feel distressed,” said Adeyinka Fajemisin, one of the evacuees. “I’m really distressed. I’m not OK. I am sad.”

The Red Cross worked to find the residents a place to stay, with many of them now at a nearby hotel.

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“Fire department came to the place and said, we have to evacuate you right away,” said Rashid Gizitdinov. “That’s it, that’s all. Take some stuff and go out.”

Lachine borough mayor Maja Vodanovic says the imminent fire risk appears to be coming from a number of sources.

“Everyone had those portable heaters while some of them were too close to the wall, already near the wall was becoming black and some wiring was not right,” said Vodanovic.

The evacuated residents are staying at a hotel until they find permanent housing. Many of them are looking for new homes through the municipal housing office.

“They’re there today to see if they qualify for social housing,” said Vodanovic. “We know that social housing is filled up everywhere, right? But there’s always some vacancy.”

“We are supposed to leave the hotel tomorrow afternoon,” added Fajemisin. “The housing promised to take us to another hotel. So, the future is not secured. The future is unknown. We don’t know what is going to happen.”

The apartment building on Ivan-Franko Street has had a number of health and safety concerns over the past several months.

“We are without hot water for about six months,” said Fajemisin. “A lot of problems in the building, a lot of problems. The elevator is not functioning, cockroaches, rats and so on.”

“It’s millions of problems,” added Gizitdinov. “Anything, it’s not working. No elevator, no hot water.”

“There’s water damage and now there’s going to be a lot of mold,” said Vodanovic. “The water went from the third floor down. There were squatters in the building, and someone cut one of the pipes.”

The City of Montreal is now pursuing legal action against the landlord.

“We don’t know who the actual owner is. And the moment we get a hold of him, because now we’re in an active search for the owner,” said Vodanovic.

“We’re going to be doing legal actions because we have to fix the issue. I mean, the building has to be put back into shape.”