The City of Burnaby has formally apologized after a complaint was launched by a renter in an illegal suite who said she felt “ambushed” after a visit by five city inspectors in January - a team she called an "army."
The woman and her mother both live in the garden-level suite and are immunocompromised. The NOW has agreed to keep their names private, but has reviewed documentation, including emails to and from the city, as well as video footage of the actual inspection taken from a kitchen surveillance camera that verify her story.
In the video, five masked city inspectors are shown entering the tiny suite as the woman and her mother watch them look at appliances and other items.
This would appear to violate the typical city inspection response, according to a Dec. 8, 2021 letter the woman received from Burnaby’s chief licence inspector in response to a previous complaint about city staff visiting her home.
“Normally, we would approach a residence with no more than two, and preferable only a single staff member,” the letter says.
One of the woman’s main complaints is that she warned the city before the inspection that she and her elderly mother are immunocompromised, but they still sent five people to her home amid rising COVID-19 cases at the time.
“We would like to start by expressing our sincere apologies for this distressing experience for yourself and your mother,” reads the letter from the city. “Your health and safety is important to us, and so is the stability of your housing situation. It appears as though the city was not as responsive to you as we should have been. We do our best to respond in a timely manner and in this case it seems we did not. We fell short of our response time standards and for that we also apologize.”
The letter says that the city had received a complaint about illegal suites in the home and had notified the homeowner that there would be an inspection. The landlord, however, did not give the proper notice to the tenant about the inspection.
The letter says the city inspectors, at the time, did not expect to be granted access to all of the suites and that they were not aware of the concerns of the tenant about people entering the suite.
The city also admitted the inspection team was “larger than usual” but there were concerns about additional trades work having been done in the suite and so inspectors with plumbing and electrical expertise were added.
“I find it odd that they said they did not expect access to our site and were prepared to forego the inspection,” the tenant who filed the complaint told the NOW. “That doesn’t make sense to me, as they still inspected our suite and said they required entry when they were here. The only other thing I take issue with in their response is the fact that they stated they were unaware of my concerns, when I did in fact email them to let them know my concerns (relating to COVID-19), and have read receipts from city staff which confirms they did in fact read my emails where I very clearly outlined said concerns.”
The city is apparently working with the landlord to bring the illegal suites into compliance.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
