Nova Scotia NDP says tenants of Halifax apartment building without power for 10 days
HALIFAX - A group of tenants have been without power in their downtown Halifax apartment building for 10 days, prompting a call from the Opposition NDP for the provincial government to step in to ensure their rights are protected.
HALIFAX - A group of tenants have been without power in their downtown Halifax apartment building for 10 days, prompting a call from the Opposition NDP for the provincial government to step in to ensure their rights are protected.
In an interview Saturday, Lisa Lachance, the legislature member for the area, said they had met with tenants at The Scotian who have been without electricity in the five-storey building in the city’s south end since Aug. 27.
Lachance said the frustrated tenants in the 50-unit building have received little help from the landlord other than advice to contact their insurance companies.
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“People are in a really difficult position,” Lachance said, adding that after paying September’s rent, some people have been told that they will have to leave the building on Monday because of flood damage that has made some of the apartments uninhabitable.
Lachance said many of the tenants are afraid to reach out to the provincial tenancy board to discuss their rights because they are on fixed-term leases and don’t want to risk losing their apartment.
“I have called upon the minister (responsible) for the Residential Tenancies Act … to get involved and to make sure that people are having their rights respected,” Lachance said.
Teddie McKay, who lives in the building, said other than a few vague emails, there’s been a lack of communication from the owners and no indication there will be any compensation for tenants.
McKay said while there hasn’t been confirmation of the exact cause of the outage from the company, some tenants have been told that a flood on the fourth floor caused damage to several electrical panels throughout most of the building.
McKay said maintenance workers checked the panels earlier last week.
“One of the panels is right outside my door and you could smell it as soon as they opened it up, it smelled like burnt metal and plastic.”
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The owners of the building, Templeton Properties, were not immediately available for comment on Saturday.
McKay said while emergencies can happen that are beyond the control of the building’s owner, there at least has to be better communication with tenants when something goes wrong.
“What my partner and I want, we just want out,” a frustrated McKay said. “We’ve dealt with multiple issues with this company and building since we moved in a year ago and this is our final straw. At this point we are looking for another place to live.”
The NDP has been pushing the provincial government to improve the Residential Tenancies Enforcement Act, so renters have more protections from being charged full rent when essential services are interrupted.
“This situation is a total example of what we have been talking about,” Lachance said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2029.
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