The video shows an old, low-ceilinged basement, the dirt floor flooded with black and brown sludge. A broken cast-iron pipe is visible — the source of a leak spewing raw sewage into the basement of a home in New Glasgow, N.S., for about a year.
Tricia Gallant, 38, was living upstairs in one of the three rental units, experiencing nausea, dizzy spells, sinus infections and brain fog.
She had an inkling there was a problem, but didn’t realize her home was dangerous.
“When I moved into that place, I was living in my car,” Gallant said in an interview. “So I thought it was going to save me, when in reality it just made me sick.”
Gallant’s living conditions are an extreme example of how low-income tenants stuck in unfit housing can suffer physically and psychologically as they struggle to get repairs and keep a roof over their head. A recent CBC News investigation found renters living in dangerous, dilapidated housing are up against unresponsive landlords and a lack of protective bylaws.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Gallant’s living conditions are an extreme example of how low-income tenants stuck in unfit housing can suffer physically and psychologically as they struggle to get repairs and keep a roof over their head.
A recent CBC News investigation found renters living in dangerous, dilapidated housing are up against unresponsive landlords and a lack of protective bylaws.
“The way that the system typically works is the onus is on the tenant to identify and raise concerns about unhealthy conditions, and this is one of the roots of the problem,” said Erica Phipps, executive director of the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment.
She said many tenants remain living in substandard, unhealthy or even dangerous conditions for prolonged periods and never make an official complaint, either because they’re scared of being evicted in retaliation or they worry the building will be condemned.
“How can we make sure that when a referral or a passing of the issue happens that you get to an ultimate conclusion to that situation,” Phipps said, “and we don’t have the revolving door of people moving into units that are known by at least some agencies to have a significant health risk.”
Casales, from the Department of Environment, said if a tenant is living in substandard conditions without running water, heat or with sewage issues, for example, they can file an application for a hearing with the Residential Tenancies Program.
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