RANDOM ADVICE

This month, we stopped into Gilmore Coin Laundry in the Junction to find creative solutions to one of the oldest problems of city living

Nov. 17, 2023

I live in a high-rise and I have a bad mouse problem. I keep a really clean apartment but no matter what I do, they’re everywhere. After I talked to a neighbour in the lobby, we realized it might be a problem with the whole building. So we called management and they sent the superintendent to put traps in our units. But we’re still getting mice. I read online that we can file a T6 form with the Landlord and Tenant Board for health and safety complaints, but it can take months to get a hearing. And I’m not sure they can force the landlord to do maintenance on the building itself. Any ideas?

Zandra

Doing laundry

When we had a mouse problem, we lived in Windsor and it was a problem in the area. Everyone knew.. There were mice in the top and bottom units of our house. We just contacted our landlord, and they sent over a person to set up traps inside random little holes and told us not to keep food out, which completely got rid of the mouse issues. But we had a pretty good connection with the landlord. If it’s a building where the landlord is a company, and if there’s multiple people in the building with the same problem, I feel like the next step is to rally up and do a petition. If the landlord doesn’t deal with it, that’s a very unstable living condition. At that point, it’s just wrong.

Scott

Also doing laundry

I had this issue at the last place I was living, in Montreal. It seems like the renter's laws do not protect you in Toronto like they do in Montreal, and they barely protect you there. So no one gives a shit about you here. I don't know anything about the process of filing this T6 form, but I would say that's a waste of time. Talking to your landlord is a waste of time. I had exterminators come in, I had all the traps set up, months of work trying to get rid of the mice and nothing worked. The only thing you can do is to buy a cat and the mice will learn not to go there. And if your landlord doesn't want you to have a cat, say, “I have an infestation. Do something about it, or this cat’s staying with us.”


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This article appears in the Nov/Dec 2023 issue.