All posts by Matthew Gergyek

Ottawa’s Capital ward sees high number of sewer rat complaints

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Luke Hawkins, a resident of Ottawa’s Capital ward, has dealt with sewer rat issues first hand. He points to this hole in the foundation, seen from the basement of his student house, as one of their main entry points. Photo: Matt Gergyek.

Luke Hawkins, a 22-year-old student at Carleton University, didn’t have the greatest first summer in the city to say the least.

One night in late May of this year, Hawkins recalls waking up to the ominous sound of a creature skittering across his bedroom. A cringe flashes across his face as he remembers leaping out of bed and violently flicking on the lights, only to find a large sewer rat peering up at him from the corner of his room.

“I didn’t sleep at all that night,” he said. “It was so gross … I didn’t want to be anywhere in the house. They’re gross creatures, I didn’t want to be around that.”

Over the course of the summer, Hawkins fought off a handful of other sewer rats in his student house in the Glebe, catching and killing eight in total in traps. Hawkins and his roommates finally traced the source of the rats to a large hole in the exterior foundation of the house that they sealed, conveniently located directly beside their garbage and recycling bins.

Hawkins and his roommates haven’t seen a rat in or around their home in almost four months now, but he said the memory still shakes him up.

Hawkins isn’t alone in his experience: The Capital ward is home to the largest number of complaints of sewer rat issues made to the city of Ottawa in the past four years, according to an analysis of data from Ottawa 311. Of the just over 800 rat complaints made to the city since March of 2013, 217 came from the Capital ward, slightly above the Rideau-Vanier ward with 205 but more than double any other ward in the city.

A data visualization appears below, displaying the number of sewer rat complaints reported to the city of Ottawa by ward. Source: Open Data Ottawa/Ottawa 311. 

Todd Babin, owner of the Ottawa-based pest control businesses Nature’s Way Property Services, isn’t surprised that the ward, which spans across the Glebe, Old Ottawa South and East, Heron Park and Riverside neighbourhoods, is home to such a large number of complaints.

“The older sewer infrastructure in (the ward) can make it easier for rats to get into people’s homes,” Babin said, noting he has seen a “steady increase” in calls to the area.



Many homes in the Capital ward are quite old themselves, Babin added, leading to cracks in a building’s foundation, where rats are known to sneak in through.


Donna DuBreuil, president of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre (OCWC), concurred with Babin, describing her experience nursing an injured rat back to health in her career.

“I was amazed at how intelligent and social they are, but obviously you don’t want them in your basement or attic,” she says.

DuBreuil said construction and infrastructure changes in the ward likely play a major role, pointing to the city’s combined sewage storage tunnel (CSST) project which kicked off in the ward in 2016 and is still underway.

“Every time we get a call (about rats) there’d be an infrastructure project going on nearby,” she said. “It’s uprooting them from the sewers.”

Babin agreed, recalling how the number of rat calls he received “went through the roof” when construction began on the LRT.

Babin and DuBreuil said there are a number of ways people can combat sewer rats trying to get into their homes. They recommend storing garbage in animal-proof bins and also clearing standing water, which can attract rats, along with properly sealing any prospective entry points into your home.

Ottawa Public Health declined an interview request and did not provide a statement or comment.  

Somerset ward a hotspot for dwellings in need of major repair

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Shannon Forrester, a Somerset ward resident, has struggled with major repair issues in her rental home since 2016, with no resolution as of yet. Photo: Matt Gergyek.

A census tract in Ottawa’s Somerset ward is home to the one of the largest number of dwellings in need of major repair in the city, according to an analysis of the 2016 census conducted by Statistics Canada.

The census tract, a roughly 134-acre piece of the ward between O’Connor Street, Gloucester Street, Cartier Street and Highway 417, holds about a staggering 3,500 dwellings in need of major repair. This means the area holds the second largest number of dwellings in need of major repair in all of Ottawa, behind a piece of the Barrhaven and Rideau-Goulbourn wards.

A map appears below showing which census tracts in Ottawa are home to the largest number of dwellings in need of major repair. The darker the colour, the more dwellings in need of major repair. Pinpointed is the census tract in Somerset ward examined in this story.


Source: Statistics Canada 2016 Census.

Statistics Canada defines a dwelling in need of major repair as having “problems that comprised the dwelling structure or the major systems of the dwelling,” such as plumbing and electricity.

Shannon Forrester, who has lived in this portion of the Somerset ward on Argyle Avenue since 2016, has dealt with the major repair issue firsthand.

“We have problems with the foundation of the house, there’s holes in it,” she said. “You can see that it’s crumbling on the outside and in the basement you can see that it’s crumbling from the inside.”

Forrester points to the foundation of her home in the identified census tract as being a sign of the major repair issue in the area. Photo: Matt Gergyek.

A contributor to the large number of dwellings in need of major repair could be the age of many of the buildings in the area.

David Hole is the community liaison with the Ottawa Neighbourhood Study (ONS), a research project that looks at how your neighbourhood in Ottawa could affect your health and well-being. Photo courtesy of ONS.

“As many as 70 or 75 per cent of the dwellings there are at least 40-years-old, if not older,” said David Hole, community liaison with the Ottawa Neighbourhood Study (ONS), a University of Ottawa-based project that analyzes data from 105 neighbourhoods in the city.

Another factor at play could be the large amount of high-rise apartments in the area, Hole said.

“If there are 400 households in one apartment building and they’re sick and tired of their elevator not working, then you’re going to have 400 reports of major repairs required with only one structure,” he explained.

About 60 per cent of dwellings in the Centretown neighbourhood which includes the census tract, are classified as high-rise apartments, over triple the Ottawa average, according to the ONS.

Shea Kiely, executive director of Housing Help, a provincially and federally funded organization that works to prevent housing loss, said the abundance of homes in need of major repair may be due to the cluster of rooming houses in the area. Rooming homes are buildings with four or more rooms that are rented out individually, where tenants share a common bathroom or kitchen space.



“A lot of landlords are not doing things by the books” and “that’s a huge issue,” Kiely said. Photo: Facebook.

“Pretty much everyone (living) in them is on financial assistance, so often landlords aren’t putting a lot of money into these buildings,” she said. “I don’t want to stereotype all landlords … but they take in people on financial assistance and figure … they’re vulnerable and easy prey.”

Going forward, Kiely said the city’s by-law department must play a stronger role in ensuring repair orders are issued and completed, a department she said is severely understaffed. When landlords are uncooperative when tenants request repairs, they can turn to by-law to issue work orders.

 

 

 




“Landlords need to be held accountable,” Forrester added, and “the city needs to take more initiative … in restoring these types of buildings that hold so much cultural and historic significance to Ottawa.”

The Canada-wide census is conducted every five years by Statistics Canada. The next census will take place in 2021.

2017 Ontario Sunshine List reveals spike in taxable benefits in Windsor public school board

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The Greater Essex County District School Board’s administration office on Park Street West in downtown Windsor, Ont.(Screenshot from Google Maps).

A small group of upper-level employees in a southern Ontario public school board saw a massive spike in their taxable benefits in 2017, according to an analysis of the annual Ontario Sunshine List which discloses the salaries and taxable benefits of public sector employees who earned more than $100,000 in the past year.

Seventeen employees with the Greater Essex County District School Board (GECDSB) in Windsor, Ont. received between $50,000 and $76,000 in the year in taxable benefits, 33 times more than the other employees on the list.

Out of the top 10 public sector employees who received the highest taxable benefits last year, eight of these spots are occupied by GECDSB employees. To put things into perspective, the employee from a different school board on the list who received the next highest taxable benefit sat at around $23,000.

For these 17 employees, the taxable benefits received were equal to between 26 and 33 per cent of their salary paid, according to an analysis of the data. For the remaining employees, their taxable benefits received were equal to at or below 1.2 per cent of their salary earned, the analysis also showed.

Carleton University business and taxation professor Rebecca Renfroe. (Courtesy Sprott School of Business).

In the previous three years, all taxable benefits for employees of the GECDSB sat below a two per cent equivalency rate in relation to salary earned.

“Taxable benefits are any benefit you get as an employee by virtue of working for your employer,” explained Rebecca Renfroe, a business and taxation professor at Carleton University. “Just the fact that you work there means you get [receive this benefit] and if you didn’t work there you wouldn’t get it.”

These can range from things vehicle, parking or travel expenses to life insurance and retirement plans, she added.

According to Scott Scantlebury, public relations officer with the GECDSB, this sudden jump in taxable benefits for seventeen employees was caused by retirement plans.

Scantlebury declined an interview request, but in an emailed response he said that due to a one-time “settlement of post-retirement benefits for eligible non-bargaining unit staff” allowing “the GECDSB to eliminate a large, future, unfunded liability” taxable benefits were higher than normal.

Scantlebury said the settlement saved the school board approximately $16.7 million in future cost.

The taxable benefit was about $4.6 million, Scantlebury said, about $1 million of which appears on the 2017 Sunshine List. According to Scantlebury, the remaining $3.6 million was received by staff who do not make the list.

“The non-bargaining employees group is much larger than just senior administration,” he said. “Most staff who received this taxable benefit were not listed … as their salary does not eclipse the $100,000 threshold.”

Contributions made by employers to an employee’s registered retirement saving plans (RRSPs) are considered to be a taxable benefit, according to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

Registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) (p. 30)
Registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) are included and considered to be taxable benefits
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Hayden Kenez, press secretary with the Treasury Board of Ontario, said in an email that a breakdown of taxable benefits is not covered within the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, which governs the Sunshine List.

Carleton University’s Rebecca Renfroe spoke to the importance of a publicly accessible and searchable Sunshine List.

“It’s our money, it’s transparency. I think particularly in today’s world where the trust between public institutions and the public isn’t always where it should be … it’s important things like this exist so there is some level of transparency,” she said.

According to the GECDSB’s website, the board is home to 55 elementary schools and 15 secondary schools.

The Sunshine List has been in existence since 1997 and requires all public sector organizations to make public the names, position titles, salaries and taxable benefits received by employees making over $100,000 by Mar. 31 of each year.

(A map of all elementary [blue] and high schools [red] in the Greater Essex County District School Board [GECDSB] appears below.)