Family feels trapped in unsafe Moncton apartment until affordable home is found

A Moncton couple worry their apartment is dangerous and falling apart and, with four children, two pets and a tight budget, fear they won't find a new place in time.

Sabrina Eatmon and her husband, Joseph Garland, have asked their landlord several times to fix the major problems in the three-bedroom apartment on Steadman Street but say he has refused.

Huge cracks have formed in the apartment walls, the living room heat vent in the ceiling keeps falling off unexpectedly, and some of the lights flicker.

The family can't use the bathroom taps because the water leaks down and fills up the light fixtures in the apartment below. The toilet doesn't work either, so the family has to use buckets of water for flushing.

And for this upper-floor apartment, plus electricity and hot water, the couple pays $900 a month.

Eatmon said the new landlord, who took over the two-apartment house on Nov. 1, told the family he did not want to put any money into the place.

"They told me there was no way they could comply with that or fix anything, and that to call whoever I wanted to because I told him I was concerned for the safety of everybody in this building," Eatmon said.

Charles LeBlanc, the division chief of fire prevention and investigation for the Moncton Fire Department, said if people are living in conditions such as these they should report them.

Options for getting help

"If people really feel that their apartment, or where they are living right now, is in such an unsafe state — obviously, I understand that they are looking for other places — I would strongly suggest that they get in touch with us, so we can go in and try to get the landlord," he said.

He said depending on the condition of the house, demolition is sometimes the only option.

"We understand that there are challenges," LeBlanc said.

"There is absolutely no question we understand that, but at the end of the day we have to ensure that those people are safe by living in that building.

"If we don't think that it is safer for them to be there, unfortunately we have to make a very difficult decision."

Eatmon, a stay-at-home mother, and Garland, an assistant manager at a Dollarama, went to the provincial Office of the Rentalsman with their concerns but did not get the answers they hoped for.

"She said that just by looking at the pictures, she is 1,000 per cent sure that this place will be condemned," Eatmon said.

That made the couple reluctant to take things further.

They have been searching for a house in the greater Moncton area but have not had any luck.

The couple had moved to the current apartment a year and a half ago because of a rent increase in their former apartment in Dieppe.

They said the $900 they now pay for rent is all they can afford, and they would have difficulty coming up with a damage deposit.

Eatmon said she and one of her children have asthma and the dust in the house makes it worse.

"It's embarrassing for them, too," Eatmon said.

"My youngest one has hard time breathing because of the bathroom where the vent is missing, so it's always dusty," Garland said.

She said even their children want to move.

"We just want to get to safety," Eatmon said.

"We want to move to a safe place. That's all we want."