International students at 2nd Sudbury home of landlord in bed bug flap face 'deplorable' conditions

Last month, a CBC News exclusive shed light on international students complaining of bed bugs, cockroaches and rats at a Sudbury, Ont., rental home on Bond Street that was converted from three to seven bedrooms.

Now, at least a dozen students at a nearby second property owned by the same landlord are said to be living in a converted rooming house that's been described as "deplorable" and "unsafe."

Chinmoy Kar Victor, one of the eight students who were living in the Bond Street home, spoke to CBC News in late May on how they were dealing with cramped and difficult living conditions.

The students had all agreed to provide a portion of first and last month's rent after seeing pictures in an online rental ad for a three-bedroom property. When they demanded their money back, the landlord refused. 

Shortly after the story was published, international students from the other converted rooming house, on Clinton Avenue, came to see Victor and his housemates, he said.

"There were tenants ... actually gathered together in our house to thank us because we stepped forward. They actually felt the same, but they were not in the situation to bring this forward," said Victor, who moved from Bangladesh to Canada in 2019 to go to Memorial University in Newfoundland, and came to Sudbury last month for a work placement toward his engineering degree.

He said the students at the Clinton Avenue home are also dealing with bed bug and cockroach issues.

CBC attempted to speak to the tenants at the Clinton Street house, but they were fearful of the repercussions for coming forward, so Victor relayed their concerns.

CBC has confirmed both properties belong to Banibrata Roy.

Despite leaving multiple phone, email and WhatsApp messages, the property owner never responded to requests for an interview.

According to his LinkedIn profile, he is a professor at a university in Pennsylvania. He had worked at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine in Sudbury between 2019 and 2020.

Victor and his housemates are among the 622,000 international students studying in Canada, a big growth from the 248,000 here 10 years ago.

He and the other students at the residence they shared expressed concerns last month that they were being taken advantage of because they were new to Canada and don't know Canadian laws or Ontario tenant rights. 

Sudbury Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann said she visited the tenants at the Bond Street address, and found out about the second house only a couple blocks away, on Clinton Avenue, where the dozen students are living.