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Unexpected work suddenly on the balcony of a tenant:

"Unexpected visit from the Property Manager, a plumber, and a contractor to assess necessary repairs on my balcony due to a water leak in the apartment below. No information is provided about the nature or exact date of these repairs. During the week of October 23, noisy work is carried out on the adjacent balcony with a suffocating toxic odor - no prior notice was given. On October 31, at 7:00 am, a contractor is on my balcony, and I am asked to remove my balcony furniture. Jackhammers start at 8:00 am without any prior notification. The coordinator calls me at 8:40 am to inform me about the work (!) and falsely claims to have notified me in advance. Suppliers (concrete) have mentioned that it's always like this, people are always surprised and frustrated to see them arrive, and they continue to ask the administration to notify tenants in advance, which it does not do."

The Property Manager takes full responsibility, admits to failing to inform us about this urgent and major repair. Acknowledges that he was wrong in this lapse and apologizes. He had not considered the noise nuisance that these works would entail.

We felt a desire for collaboration ,and observed communication efforts from our administration in the immediate aftermath of the submission of our petition, but the improvement has NOT been sustained. Many tenants complain about not receiving callbacks or messages, or receiving inadequate or confusing responses, without results. It creates a lot of unnecessary frustration.

Serious problems persist in terms of communication, both with tenants and with employees and suppliers. The administration MUST realize that it operates in the housing sector and has legal and moral obligations to the people who live here. It persists in acting with a mix of stubborn lack of responsiveness, and thoughtless haste.

Regional Director Contarini, during our first meeting (12.09.23), informed us that he would already require that every Friday, the coordinators send him, by email, a report of all communications and responses made to tenant requests. Since Regional Director Contarini was not present at our meeting today, it will be imperative, at our next meeting in a month, to discuss this again to assess whether these changes have indeed resulted in an improvement in communications and follow-ups.

The Property Manager takes this into account and only aims for improvement in communications. He says he is the first to suffer the consequences of these poor communications. Tenants are getting frustrated and angry, which seriously bothers him in his work. So, like all of us, he aims for improvement as soon as possible. He has changed the entire telephone system for all members of the administration to more efficient devices. Each employee now has a headset for better handling of phone exchanges. Unfortunately the problem is not technological: it is not caused by mishearing the sounds of the people speaking but not using active listening, empathy and a sense of urgency when discussing problems with the tenants.

Following the tenants' consultations, we met with the managers of Rockhill to discuss the points raised.

Click here to read the report.

The Rockhill Tenants Collective held two meetings on October 30, 2023 (floors 9-20) and November 6, 2023 (floors 1-8). Thank you for coming in large numbers! We gathered many testimonies that have been very helpful to us.

Click here to read the minutes of our meetings.

The RTC has met with the Minto administration following the delviery of the petition.

Click here to read the minutes of the meeting.

More than 150 tenants from building B have signed the petition that we sent to the senior management of Minto Group in Ottawa. Read the letter attached to the petition here.