City contractors bore skylight into Toronto couple's basement

An Oakwood Avenue family is frustrated and fuming after Toronto city workers repairing a public sidewalk Monday accidentally bored a massive hole into their basement.

To add insult to injury, Erin Bell and David Stone say, the city is now insisting the couple pay for the repairs themselves.

"It's disappointing, it's angering, it's frustrating, and it's almost unbelievable," Stone told CBC Toronto. "The city destroyed my home."

As of Wednesday, city officials blocked off the entrance to both the upper-level apartment and the couple's ground-floor music school. They also tacked a notice to the front door declaring the building unsafe. The order requires the couple hire an engineer to assess the damage, apply for any necessary building permits, and have the building repaired.

To access their home, the couple and their two school-aged children have to go around the back of the building and into a neighbour's yard, from which they climb a chain-link fence into their own enclosed backyard, which has a staircase up to their rear entrance.

CBC Toronto asked the city for confirmation that an inspector told the couple to repair the damage at its own expense and whether that's in line with official policy. 

In an email reply Thursday, the city's media relations manager Russell Baker did not directly respond to the questions. 

"We recognize that these kinds of unexpected situations can be challenging, which is why the City of Toronto is working with the property owner to address this unfortunate and unusual situation," Baker said.

However, Bell says a city engineer showed up to do an assessment on Thursday following CBC Toronto's inquiries. It's still unclear who will foot the bills.

The couple's nightmare began on Monday morning, when a City of Toronto contractor  showed up with what looked like an excavator equipped with a heavy-duty jack hammer. The idea, Bell told CBC Toronto, was to replace a black asphalt patch on the sidewalk in front of the couple's property. That patch was left by city workers who dug up the sidewalk while attaching new water pipes to the couple's building weeks ago.

Security footage shows the worker hammering at the base of the couple's front door and angled street-front wall — clearly on their property — until the hammer appears to break through the sidewalk.

The operator immediately dismounts and looks at the damage, while talking on his phone. He can be heard telling someone,"There's a problem here."

The visibly frazzled worker is later heard saying, "It went down into the f--cking basement...I don't know what you want to do here. Do you want to call the inspector?"

Afterwards the contractor knocks on the door and shows Bell the damage.