Beware of roaches and potentially bedbugs
On August 22, 2016 my wife and I moved into to the Stonebridge apartments A block in Saskatoon. Prior to moving in we were told that the carpets would be cleaned, however, on move in day that wasn't the case. There stains on the carpet in every room and the place smelled like something foul. A week later after our furniture was moved the carpet cleaning took place around all of our furniture.
Less than a month after moving in we received a letter saying that they had to apply chemicals to kill cockroaches. We were asked to empty our closets and cupboards, move all furniture two feet away from the walls, and find an overnight location for our pet cat otherwise we would be fined. On the day Boardwalk was supposed to exterminate the roaches they decided not to show up at all. They said it wasn’t necessary in our suite and sent us an apology letter with $25 Tim Hortons gift card to compensate us for 24 hours of labour between packing/unpacking and moving our furniture twice.
From mid December 2016 to late February 2017 there were constant hot water issues where we could not have anything hotter than lukewarm water. This obviously made doing the dishes, laundry and showering a real pain. It got to the point where my wife and I started having all of our showers at the gym. I called Boardwalk's 1-800# at least a dozen times about this issue and asked for the building manager to call me back and explain how and when they will be fixing this, but never received a response back. On a couple of occasions they sent a maintenance guy to come speak to us, but his answer was that this an old building and nothing can be done about this issue. I knew that was lie since I work in the HVAC industry and fixed this issue many times in other buildings.
There have been many issues with the appliances. The A/C needed to be replaced shortly after moving in. Only three of four stove burners work. The fridge is far too small to fit anything more than condiments and a few Tupperware containers. Additionally, there have been constant issues with the dryer. On April 27, 2017, I informed onsite staff that the heating element of the dryer stopped working. As of May 30, 2017 the dryer still hasn't been repaired or replaced, so for the past several weeks we've been hanging all of our laundry to dry.
In April 2017, a pest inspection determined that our suite had been infested with cockroaches (we know this because they were supposed to come and spray in September). The infestation has gotten so bad that roaches made their way inside of our plants, Keurig coffee maker and our microwave. Can you imagine opening up the hatch of the Keurig to discover a roach crawling all over your k-cup dispenser? You can actually see the roaches walking around in the glass viewing door of the microwave while you cook food. Obviously we have thrown out both appliances because it’s unsanitary to keep using them. Boardwalk initially said they would replace those appliances, but since the conversation wasn’t in writing they decided to not live up to those promises when I followed up.
Each time there is a pesticide application they close off our apartment. That means that my wife, who operates a business out of our home, is left to find a remote office somewhere around Sutherland. They leave practically no notice for her which can set her projects back by a day at least.
We had contacted the Rentalsman and Health Region since the roaches were everywhere. It took close to two weeks for Boardwalk to apply pesticides in our suite. Since the action took so long to fix this issue we submitted a demand letter to break our lease and Boardwalk accepted.
On May 24, 2017 we had a scheduled roach inspection and the maintenance person forgot a paper in the suite which stated there are bedbugs in suite 201A and cockroaches suite 112B. The validity of this paper can't be confirmed but a boardwalk agent seemed distressed about it on the phone and asked that I return it to the office for shredding