By Janet Monk

Toronto City Council has left Cliffcrest and Cliffside residents in limbo after deferring the vote to legalize multi-tenant (rooming) houses in the GTA and bolster regulations for the second time. City Council cited that the vote on October 1 was deferred to 2022 because the situation required further investigation. Anonymous local residents and multi-tenant renters, however, will continue to face the dangerous consequences of City Council’s indecision.

On Neilson Avenue in the vicinity of Fairmount Public School, a small family home has allegedly operated as an on-and-off multi-tenant house since 2016. It was previously occupied by disruptive and destructive tenants and is said to be in a constant state of disrepair. As there are new tenants occupying the home, their exact address cannot be shared. From 2016 to 2019, residents attest that they were constantly making excessive noise, speeding, and illegal garbage dumping complaints about the multi-tenant home occupants to police.

One resident said they witnessed a police raid on the property in May 2019, after which approximately 14 stained and ripped up mattresses were removed from the house. Several residents of Neilson Avenue have witnessed dozens of different cars with missing plates and broken windows at the property, filling its driveway and the street. The pool shed behind the building was purportedly used as a chicken coop and later as garbage storage, which attracted rats to neighbouring properties. The tenants were also reportedly dumping waste in wooded park areas nearby.
Another local claimed that upon passing the property one evening in 2017, they heard whacking sounds and the yelps of a dog coming from the backyard. Enraged, they knocked on the door with two family members as witnesses. The family met a young male tenant holding a quivering puppy, who then invited them inside to see that all was well. However, the family claims that the rooms were littered with used pee mats and animal feces. Immediately afterwards, the family contacted the Ontario SPCA and the puppy was removed from the house within a week.
The owner of the property at the time of these disturbances was largely absent according to locals. Since 2019, great numbers of mattresses have been reported seen on the lawn of the property on 3 additional occasions, possibly signifying continued multi-tenant house activity. As of 2021, residents say that disruptive multi-tenant-related activity appears to be in decline at the property, but the possibility of disruptive and potentially hazardous activity happening again keeps them tense.
According to another anonymous source, numbers 11 and 19 Parkcrest Drive have operated as multi-tenant houses since late spring, 2021. The source said that they first suspected they were multi-tenant houses when they saw large groups of young men, who they later discovered were international

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