Lack of housing options leaves Saint John family in leaky, mouldy apartment

In the first week in his family's new apartment, Cory Hamilton was awakened in the middle of the night by water dripping onto his bed. 

Bubbles started forming in the freshly painted ceiling and before long, chunks of plaster began raining down.  

Now, six months later, bowls and buckets have to be scattered around during every rain storm to catch the drips in several places in the bedroom and living room, and all of the electronics in the living room have to be unplugged since most of the outlets are on the leaky exterior wall. 

Hamilton, who pays $1,500 a month for his three-bedroom apartment, was surprised at the amount of water that poured into his bedroom. After all, he lives on the second floor of a three-story building and his sister-in-law lives on the top floor, so he knew it was her living room directly above them. 

He eventually realized the water was coming through the side of the building. He immediately complained to the local property management company, which oversees things for the building's owner, AEY Industries, Ltd., which is listed on property records as being located in Amherstburg, Ont. Jeff Levy, the founder of AEY has not responded to interview requests.

That was last November and by early December, he filed a complaint with the province. When asked about the case, Rebecca Howland, a spokesperson for N.B.Housing, said she couldn't discuss specific cases for privacy reasons. 

She said if a tenant doesn't agree with a decision of the tenant and landlord relations office, they can appeal it.

Hamilton's landlord started exploring the problem — opening up the ceiling and tearing the siding off the front of the building. 

After building houses for more than a decade, Hamilton knows what to look for. But he wasn't expecting what he saw — three separate ceilings, one on top of the other, and a completely rotted support beam at the front of the building. 

He and his wife repeatedly have to clean piles of rotted wood that fall onto the window ledge in his bedroom.

Knowing it's a structural beam that has rotted away, he worries about the safety of his family. Walls are bowed, crown moulding is warped, windows don't close properly and light shines in around them. He said none of these defects were apparent when he moved in. 

"So this has been Band-Aided, Band-Aided and Band-Aided for quite some time. And now it's to the point where you can't Band-Aid it anymore," said Hamilton, who manages online sales and marketing for Vintage Pursuit Hobby Shop, which sells trading cards and other memorabilia.

In the upstairs apartment, a section of the kitchen ceiling collapsed on his teenage nephew as he cooked himself a meal. 

With four children between the ages of five and 16, Hamilton is also worried about his family's health. He said his six-year-old son has been sick more in the last six months than he has in his entire life.