Parkdale tenants fight back after entire building receives eviction notices

Tenants at 12 Lansdowne Avenue are fighting back after every resident in the building received eviction notices.

The tenants received N13 notices from the landlords, 12 Lansdowne Inc., in January. Typically, these evictions are used to complete repairs and renovations. Once completed, landlords are supposed to offer the unit back to the tenant at a rate similar to the rent paid prior to the repairs or renovations. Tenants at 12 Lansdowne Avenue worry that won’t be the case here.

Since receiving the notices, the tenants have been pushing back. They fear that they will be the victims of renovictions, something that the landlords have been fined for on a previous occasion.

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The tenants and housing advocates say that landlords Neil Spiegel and Evan Johnsen have a history of exploiting loopholes in Ontario landlord-tenant laws.

After an entire building – 12 Lansdowne – received N13 eviction notices, posters started going up around the neighbourhood, putting local ‘renovictors’ Evan Johnsen & Neil Spiegel on notice.

Contact Evan & Neil and demand they drop the evictions: https://t.co/HBeItpXLFU pic.twitter.com/uNHFAfeBEX

— Parkdale Organize (@ParkdaleOrg) March 2, 2022

Spiegel, director of 12 Lansdowne Inc., and Johnsen were fined twice in 2019 over wrongful evictions. They had served tenants at 795 College Street with N13 notices in 2017. Once the tenants were evicted, the units were renovated and rented out at much higher prices. In total, the fines amounted to $135,000. None of this money compensated tenants who had been evicted.

Spiegel told Toronto Star that this would not be a repeat of the College Street renoviction, but tenants aren’t buying it. They’ve papered the Parkdale neighbourhood with posters decrying the situation.

The posters depict the landlords as cockroaches and say, “Parkdale has a pest problem.” They’re asking local residents to contact the landlords and demand an end to the evictions.

The building at 12 Lansdowne is located near Parkdale’s busy Queen and Lansdowne intersection.

Organized tenants are now informing neighbours and other passersby of their demand that landlord Evan Johnsen withdraw the N13 eviction notices now. pic.twitter.com/3WXYDLhz9e

— Parkdale Organize (@ParkdaleOrg) February 9, 2022