Bedbug infestation at former Lions Place building has grown worse under new owners, residents say

Former and current residents of a non-profit seniors complex that was sold to a private company earlier this year say the once thriving building is now overrun with bedbugs and lacking in resources.

Lions Place, a 287-suite building on Portage Avenue, was sold to Calgary-based Mainstreet Equity Corp. in February and renamed the Residences at Portage Commons.

Residents say staff turnover and a change in pest control protocols have made the building unlivable.

"It was really bad," said Robert Robinson, 93, a former Lions Place resident who moved out in September after his suite became infested with bedbugs. "It got to the point where I couldn't tolerate it anymore."

Officials with Mainstreet deny responsibility for the problems, saying they inherited a "significant" bedbug problem when they took over. 

The sale of the non-profit building was met with fierce opposition from its residents and housing advocates. At the time, the complex provided rent-geared-to-income housing for those aged 55 and over, and was one of the largest non-profit housing units in the province. 

Lions Place had been owned by Lions Housing Centres, one of the 200 non-profit housing organizations that operate in Manitoba. These organizations provide half of all social housing in the province and generally rely on funding from the provincial government to operate. 

Seeing what happened to Lions Place almost a year after its sale has current residents pleading with the new NDP government and other non-profits to not let this happen again. 

"That's why I want to talk to these other non-profits and say, 'don't sell,'" said Gerald Brown, chairperson of the Portage Commons seniors action committee and current resident. "Don't just throw up your hands and say we can't do it anymore."

Robinson recalls his time at Lions Place fondly – he had friends, daily social activities and a comfortable bed to sleep in each night. 

"We had just about everything we wanted," he said. 

But that changed when bedbugs entered his suite and he couldn't get rid of them.

During his four years at Lions Place, he says, whenever signs of bedbugs appeared, the full-time pest control team would immediately come to the suite. They would move Robinson's stuff away from the walls, pile it in the living room and spray, ending the infestation.

When Mainstreet took over, residents say, the full-time pest control team was no longer around and a private, third-party firm took over.