Garbage flung from Kipling highrise creates ‘a landfill site, minus the seagulls’

City crew cleans up accumulation of trash behind 18-storey Kipling tower, some of it stuck high in trees, after landlord ignores order to do the job.

Thestar.com
May 12, 2015
By Ben Spurr

Used diapers. Tampon applicators. Toy trains. A long-dead Christmas tree.

Those were just some of the discarded items found heaped behind a North Etobicoke highrise last month in what city officials say is the worst accumulation of garbage on an apartment property they have ever seen.

It was “a landfill site, minus the seagulls,” said Pat Burke, a supervisor for the municipal licensing and standards department, who on Tuesday was overseeing a major cleanup operation.

According to Burke, tenants in the 18-storey building at 2777 Kipling have been tossing household waste off their balconies and onto the wooded lawn, which backs onto the Humber River conservation area.

Those accounts are backed up by the large amount of refuse strewn in the trees, including ragged clothing, plastic bags bulging with unknown substances, and even a child’s stroller, which was snagged 10 metres above the ground.

Before 8 a.m Tuesday, a small army of about 80 city-hired workers wearing in hard hats and reflective vests began streaming into the area behind the tower to haul out the trash.

A crew of about 20 had already removed five dumpsters worth of refuse last week, but soon realized they would need reinforcements. Burke said the cleanup crew would need to return Wednesday to finish the job.

The clean-up blitz is part of the city’s Multi-Residential Apartment Building audit program, or MRAB, which inspects and enforces building standards at rental properties. On April 30, MLS inspectors issued the landlord a notice of a bylaw violation ordering him to clean up the site. When he didn’t, the city hired the crews to perform “remedial action.”

Although the tenants may be the ones tossing their garbage, Mark Sraga, director of investigation services for MLS, says the property owner is ultimately responsible. “We have a landlord who doesn’t look after their property properly, and the tenants get to a point of, ‘If you don’t care, we don’t care,’” he said.

The landlord will be sent the bill for the cleanup. Sraga couldn’t say how much the operation would cost, but said this is the biggest “remedial action” carried out since MRAB began in 2008. A similar, smaller job last fall came out to about $30,000.

“This is an example of us trying to communicate to the property owners: If you don’t look out for your property, we the city will do it for you, and you’re going to pay for it,” he said.

Tenant Mike Yeboah said the garbage rooms aren't cleaned often and sometimes the lights are burnt out.

“So some people don't want to go inside. They drop (garbage) anywhere,” he said.

Yeboah agreed that it was irresponsible to throw trash out the window, but he also blamed the landlord: “The management is not doing good enough.”

Residents told the Star the property's superintendents don't respond to basic maintenance requests.

City officials pointed out several other infractions Tuesday, including unsecured, overstuffed dumpsters that were spewing trash into the wind, air-conditioning units tilting at dangerous angles out of upper windows, and light fixtures hanging loose from hallway ceilings. The door to the garbage chute on the 18th floor was blocked by piles of trash; the chute door on another floor was broken.

Reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, landlord Arnold Litwin-Logan took no responsibility for the garbage problem. He said it isn't fair that he'll be hit with a bill for the trash heap, because his employees were “just about to start cleaning it up” when the city moved in.

“The city basically has an attitude, probably for political reasons, that tenants are basically blameless infants and have no responsibility for their actions,” he said.

“Instead of sending 80 people to clean it up, they should be sending a crew of people with cameras to take pictures of who's throwing garbage, and give them fines.

“Are these people adults or are they children?”

Litwin-Logan denied that maintenance at the property was substandard, and said he has a “triple-A” management team of eight full-time staff at the building who “fix everything that needs to be fixed.”

Property and corporate records indicate that Litwin-Logan or companies he's associated with own about a dozen properties in the GTA and Oshawa.

He could not recall when he last visited the Kipling building.