Complaints pile up for NDG landlord

By Dan Delmar

The man who let a Girouard Ave. apartment complex deteriorate to the point where it became a “slum,” according to its new owner, is again the subject of numerous complaints from other tenants in NDG.

After reading tales of substandard living at 2290 Girouard, which is now being renovated by owner Yves Clément, tenants at 4309-4311 Beaconsfield Ave. in the Monkland Village contacted The Suburban to express their frustration with Marc Émile Barchichat, a Montreal lawyer whose company owns several apartment buildings, with partner Philippe Stenger.

“We have broken windows — they’ve been that way since last Christmas (2008)… Marc always says he’s going to fix things but never comes. We have problems with the garbage (piling up). Sometimes they put it out, sometimes they don’t,” explained tenant Jill Landon. “He keeps trying different ways to get us out!”

Barchichat has owned the building for roughly five years and has made unsuccessful attempts to significantly raise rents. In Régie du Logement rulings, judges struck down his increases, which for Landon amounted to monthly spikes of about $75 and $175, when no major improvements to the units had been made. Worse yet, Landon and at least one other tenant say there have been unauthorized entries into their apartments by someone possessing keys to the front doors of their homes.

Both Landon and Stacey Berman, a tenant at 4309-4311 Beaconsfield since 2001, contacted police after the incidents in 2007. They were told by SPVM officers to change their locks and not give copies to Barchichat or any of his associates who do work in the building. Barchichat, who again did not respond to The Suburban’s request for an interview, was also behind on his taxes, leading tenants to pay rent at times last year directly to the receiver general. 

“I’ve taken him to the rental board several times,” said Berman, who also won a rental board judgment against Barchichat for an unjustified rent increase. “He’s very proper — when he’s in front of a judge.”

“When we need apartment repairs, I always go through the proper channels and he never gets back to me,” Berman added. “My kitchen floor has been peeling and rotting for years. He’s neglecting the building.”

Another tenant, who asked not to be identified for fear relations with Barchichat would further deteriorate, also told The Suburban that there has been little maintenance work done since he took over the building. The woman has warned him about mould forming inside the windowsill and a cracked window which she doesn’t expect to ever be repaired.

“It takes a lot to get him to fix anything,” the woman said. “Garbage is left here a long time…he tried to raise the rent by a lot.”

“It’s disgusting,” added the woman’s daughter, who complained of a squirrel or some kind of rodent scurrying in between the walls. Andrew Baldwin, a 10-year resident who moved out six months ago, said garbage would also be dumped in the laneway and left there for months.

“It was very hard. I had taps that did not work properly …it would go nine months without being repaired,” explained Baldwin, who said he spent months dumping bucketfuls of water, multiple times per day, because of the leak. “It was very hard. And sure enough, the people who moved in (to his old unit) had trouble too.”

Privacy is also an issue in the building: The daughter also said she saw a man (not Barchichat) tampering with the building’s mailboxes. Landon and Berman also suspect someone may have read their mail. Landon believes her mailbox lock was picked and envelopes steam-opened. Both say they’ve received mail with outdated postmarks and haven’t been able to get an explanation from Canada Post.

Landon, who spends her own money to replace burned-out light bulbs in the hallway, is concerned that conditions could eventually become unbearable, forcing her out; a situation similar to that faced by the former 2290 Girouard tenants, who all left their homes after heating was cut off and maintenance became nonexistent.

“It’s absolutely incredible and unfortunate. Montreal needs to get some teeth when it comes to bad landlords,” Baldwin said.

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