Harassment
It will take a while to detail everything. I have already included a summary of the harassment endured prior to Thursday, February 6, in the documents filed with LTB. The following is a summary I emailed the Landlord's representative, listing the abuses that took place since February 6.
On the Thursday when the power to my unit was cut, the Superintendent James opened the door without notice or knocking, stepped aside and then somebody tried to enter my unit. I was in my underwear and I rushed to close the door. Superintendent James then jumped in front of the door, claiming I am an idiot, that I will be arrested and that he has done this many times before. I closed and locked the door without assaulting anyone, resisted further attempts by the Superintendent to open the door by force simply by holding the deadbolt with my hand, put some clothes on and called the police. The police team checked my proof that I am in the apartment legally, refused to charge Superintendent James with assault as I had requested and assured me that an application will be filed with LTB. Later on I was told that this is off the table because it would take too long.
I filed my T2 application with LTB - which I had started working on 2 days prior - by fax, fearing further and escalating violence, mentioning this in both the application and cover page and requesting an early date in the cover page. Power (electricity) to the unit was cut shortly thereafter. I then called MHA IEU where Ms Bhavani Somasundaram did intake 14-171-08-003.
The Superintendent facilitated further attempts at home invasion on Saturday, February 8 by providing the assailants with a second key. The Superintendent assisted and encouraged all these provocations as a "witness" and appears to have counseled the assailants to open the door, place their foot inside so that it cannot be closed, then wait to be pushed out as to claim assault. On one such attempt he handed a shovel to one of my assailants, which the latter refused to take and use. It is quite obvious that all these attempts were orchestrated by the Landlord through the Superintendent with the intent to provoke violence and cause all the parties involved to be arrested and charged, thereby emptying the fully paid apartment and allowing earlier rental and showing.
Under threat of violence and to break a potentially violent situation with the assailants having their foot in the door and pushing against me, I consented to give Chris Richin some of the items in the apartment while I called the Police. He took more than I agreed to let him have under duress, returned some of the items, then made subsequent attempts to enter the premises. Police came a few hours later (it had been difficult to get in as the inter-phone had not been set up for me but a neighbour was kind enough to open), recommended I protect my apartment using only necessary force and warned the Superintendent to cease his provocations.
On the evening of Saturday, February 8, I heard Superintendent James and a female voice, most likely Ms Beverly Epstein, come to my door saying "the idiot must have changed the locks," even though I had not done that, nor have I installed any additional chain, etc. Once again, I held the deadbolt leaver on the inside with my hand until they left.
On the evening of February 9, as I was trying in the dark to collect all the food that spoiled due to the fridge / freezer having stopped working, a female voice belonging to someone passing on the hallway, most likely Ms Beverly Epstein, remarked loudly "there's a bad smell coming from this apartment." Shortly thereafter, she returned with someone holding a bunch of keys and I overheard a key attempting to once again open the apartment without knocking or notice. They abandoned their attempt after I made some noise. I finished collecting everything, washed and cleaned the freezer and fridge, and then, on my way to the green bin I realized that I had not locked the apartment. I left the bag on the hallway and returned to take the key from inside. When I came back out, the bag with spoiling food had disappeared. The next morning, on February 10, I left my place for 1-2 minutes and when I returned the bag of spoiled food was at my door. Additionally, the kitchen floor was dirty with muddy water, the kind that is left behind by snow melting off somebody's shoes. I am assuming this to be yet another illegal entry by Superintendent James.
Above are some of the receipts of food purchases (I did not keep the cash ones) in the days prior to the power cut (they can be found also at http://go.zodian.net/bFood1 to bFood4). I estimate my total losses due to the power cut (including January 16) at around $100.
On February 11, upon returning home, I was hit by an intense smell of insecticide and the windows were closed even though I had left them open upon my departure. The smell was very persistent and did not go away even after leaving the window fully open for hours. Notably, there was no bad smell left, as I had gotten rid of all the perishable items, cleaned and deodorized the place. I never complained of an insect or rodent infestation and while staying in the apartment I have not noticed any insect whatsoever, including fruit flies.
On February 14, when power (electricity) was restored following a City of Toronto inspection prompted by my complaint filed the previous day (#2544490). I returned home to an electrician van parked on the garbage alley and a mixture of burnt smell and insecticide inside the apartment. Superintendent James claimed that the stove had been left on (highly unlikely - I was not using the stove when the power was cut off) and I had left a lid on the hot plate which had become ash. He further on claimed he did not know that the power was off all this time and that I should have placed a notice under his office door, behind the locked laundry room. He claimed the insecticide smell was most likely coming from another tenant. The superintendent claimed he entered my apartment with a witness, most likely the Tenant next door.
On Monday, February 17, I distributed to other Tenants in the building, via their mailboxes, a small piece of paper with a short message inviting them to visit the website http://balmoral-jsteinman.zodian.net . I took this action after discovering the extent of issues with the building as reported by previous tenants on sites such as BedBug Registry. Upon checking with two random tenants I met, it became clear that the Landlord may have knowingly removed the notices from the mailboxes with the intention of preventing Tenants from learning about this dispute and stop the formation of a Tenant association.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, it seems that the Landlord does not admit to any of the above. It also seems that the Landlord has been busy getting other Tenants involved as witnesses, thinking perhaps that he can impress a court of law with the sheer number of people he can force to testify, irrespective to whether their evidence is favorable or not. On the other hand, if asking their Tenants for help will result in catching up to much needed fixes and repairs to the building, that cannot possibly be a bad thing.
It may be tempting to blame the Superintendent personally for the above egregious acts, but I believe that he has acted with the full knowledge and approval of the Landlord, who essentially hired him so that they themselves do not get their hands dirty. Moreover, the Superintendent seems to have been led to believe that a (sub)Tenancy resulting from a sublet or assignments has no protection from the law, belief that was only re-enforced by the Police refusal to charge him or by the Ministry of Housing Affairs Investigations and Enforcement Unit failure to enforce and uphold the law in a timely manner.