After weeks of complaining about bug infestations and smells, seniors in public housing have been informed that they’ll be getting new locks for their doors.
Staff from the Office municipal d’habitation de Montreal (OMHM) met with tenants at 720 and 760 Gamelin in early and mid-September to tell them about plans to outfit both buildings with electronic door locks in the coming year.
Since those meetings, tenants from both buildings have been calling the Suburban in frustration and 26 tenants from 720 met with our reporter in person last Monday.
“How can they justify spending money on technology when they can’t even wash our windows or clean the floors,” asked one tenant during the meeting.
“We have more potholes here than they have on the worst Montreal roads,” said another.
“They should start by cleaning the buildings, exterminating ants and bed bugs and repairing water damage before spending for upgrades,” said another.
“Don’t forget about my mice. I want my mice gone,” said another.
The tenants in 720 want the entire building fumigated and cleaned properly and wanted to know how to go about getting respectful answers from their landlord. They were particularly frustrated after receiving what they considered a disrespectful response to their petition. (See “OMHM staff powerless too” story).
Meanwhile, tenants in 760 are no happier about their landlord’s plans for new locks, which they heard about on September 6, but some are tentatively encouraged by the possibilities of a a tenants’ committee and new renovations at the front entrance. Neither idea was approved at the meeting in early September, but both are supposed to begin this week.
Several residents were afraid to attend the meeting in September and supplied Serge Gagné with sealed letters for housing officials instead.
“I haven’t got any response from those letters, but I passed them on to the OMHM,” said Gagné.
Tenants who called the Suburban expressed concern over the “house arrest mentality” they say they’d been experiencing for months now. Some are frustrated that they can’t consume liquor on the grounds or in the tenants’ committee room without a licence; another complained that she received a letter from the OMHM asking her to refrain from picking up mail in her housecoat; and two others said they were told to gather within their apartments instead of in common areas after another tenant called them names.
Note: This article appeared in the City edition of the Suburban on October 3.
