ex-park victoria tenants allege infestations, crudely subdivided spaces, flimsy makeshift walls at halifax apartment building
7 minute read
mark culligan from the dalhousie legal aid service, left, poses with ex-park victoria tenants jeonghyeon lee and max gallo-will in halifax on friday.
willy palov
/
chronicle herald
in the wake of a recent fire at the park victoria building in halifax, several former tenants have come forward with complaints about substandard living conditions at the apartment high-rise.
with the help of the dalhousie legal aid service, max gallo-will, jeonghyeon lee, and a third person going by the pseudonym peter to protect his identity are alleging the units they leased between september 2024 and the end of 2025 were falsely represented by a third-party landlord and unfit for habitation.
the trio also voiced concerns about inadequate fire safety. many others have also contacted dal legal aid but didn’t want to be identified or participate in going public with their grievances. their goal is to raise awareness about the living conditions at the building.
in a friday news release, dal legal aid said, “their landlord subdivided the living rooms of their apartments using makeshift walls and plastic accordion doors.”
“the landlord, harrington housing, advertised the units as four-bedroom apartments, but two bedrooms in each apartment were makeshift rooms. the tenants also experienced issues with pests, unlawful fees, and irregular leases.”
“(the apartment) was totally different when i moved in from when i had a (tour),” said lee, a dal master’s computer science graduate who lived in the building in 2025.
“they showed me a unit, but it was not the same unit that i was going to move into. it was totally empty, and the person who was showing me around was staying there, so it was much cleaner.
“mine was heavily infested. i found a lot of mice and cockroaches. and i heard from some of my roommates that they got bedbugs as well in the building.
“the apartment was overcrowded because, in what’s supposed to be the living room, was a partition with just plastic curtains,” added lee, who is from south korea and shared the apartment with four others.
advertisement
“one room had a window, but the other one didn’t, so it was just a wall and a partition. and that didn’t even (go up all the way) to the ceiling, so anything can just crawl under or you can hear everything, basically.”
an example of one of the makeshift walls and doors used to subdivide apartment space to create bedrooms in a rental unit in halifax’s park victoria. – supplied by dalhousie legal aid service
by converting the living room into two bedrooms, the only common spaces left in the patchwork four-bedroom unit were the kitchen and bathroom.
building owner says it doesn’t have any current leases with harrington housing
park victoria, which is located at 1333 south park st., is run by capreit apartments inc., a large nationwide real estate and property management company.
dal legal aid described harrington housing as a “toronto-based ‘co-living provider’ which helps landlords ‘achieve 100 per cent occupancy.’ harrington works by renting apartments from building owners and then re-renting those units to the public.”
capreit issued a statement to address the concerns of the tenants, as well as to provide updated details related to the july 25 fire and the working relationship with harrington housing.
“capreit takes the concerns raised by residents of park victoria seriously,” the statement read.
“we are also mindful of the impact the recent fire has had on residents and the broader community, and our thoughts are with everyone affected. we do not comment on matters before the court or tribunal.
residents evacuate the building during a fire in an eighth-floor suite in the park victoria apartment complex in halifax, july 25.
tim krochak
/
chronicle herald
“the unit where the recent fire occurred was not a co-living unit. capreit does not have any current leases with harrington housing. our co-living units address the needs of an important yet underserved segment of the population, namely students and young professionals seeking affordable, furnished accommodations. those units are configured to comply with applicable building and fire safety requirements.
“capreit conducts regular inspections and maintenance at park victoria, tests required life-safety systems and addresses any deficiencies identified. capreit remains committed to the safety, maintenance, and responsible management of park victoria.”
an example of one of the makeshift walls used to subdivide apartment space to create bedrooms in a rental unit in halifax’s park victoria. – supplied by dalhousie legal aid service
advertisement
gallo-will promised two-bedroom unit
co-living is a modern real estate term used to describe the practice of renting bedrooms and shared amenities to individuals in larger units. it is a common arrangement, but gallo-will said what he signed up for in september 2024 and what he experienced were two different things.
he said he agreed to rent a standard two-bedroom unit, but when it came time to move in, he was told by management his apartment was being renovated, so he was asked to live temporarily in one of the makeshift four-bedroom spaces similar to what lee described.
he agreed on a short-term basis, but he said the unit he was originally promised remained under construction for more than a year.
so in addition to having to accept the partitioning-style living quarters, gallo-will said his space in the apartment had discarded bags, boxes and metal debris in it when he moved in.
former park victoria tenant max gallo-will poses for a photo outside his dartmouth home on friday.
ryan taplin
/
chronicle herald
“it also hadn’t been vacuumed or dusted or anything. it was just dirty,” gallo-will said.
“and that was exacerbated later on in the year when the apartment (had a pest infestation). we were very, very careful with food because i had been warned by one of my roommates that this was a possibility. everyone in the apartment was very careful about this. we sealed our food, threw it out on time, everything.
“but if any of the apartments in that building get a cockroach infestation, all of the building now has a cockroach infestation, and it’s the same with rats. and both of those actually happened to us. when i contacted the person for that in the building . . . they eventually came to provide help for that, but all they did for the rat was put down a sticky paper trap that the rat walked onto and walked away from in my vision once.”
gallo-will was also a dalhousie university student when he entered into his rental agreement and dal legal aid later helped him through the legal system, saying “he made a claim to residential tenancies and won $3,112 as a rent abatement and for the return of unlawful fees and deposits.”
advertisement
‘real act of courage and tenacity,’ says legal worker of ex-tenants
mark culligan is a community legal worker at dal legal aid and described gallo-will and lee as some of the lucky ones because most tenants who go through experiences like this don’t have the persistence or the resources to seek justice.
“it’s a real act of courage and tenacity, i think, to go forward with the case, and especially to go public,” culligan said.
“the fact that people are renting in units and staying in these kinds of makeshift environments speaks to the housing crisis as a whole. people don’t have a ton of options, and even when you want to leave, it’s not easy to leave quickly, so people have been forced by the market to settle for forms of housing that would have been inconceivable a few decades ago.”
an example of one of the makeshift walls used to subdivide apartment space to create bedrooms in a rental unit in halifax’s park victoria. – supplied by dalhousie legal aid service
gallo-will also said he was fortunate because he is from canada and has a personal support system in place here, compared to the large number of international students in nova scotia trying to manage the same circumstances.
“i tried to give them (the landlords) the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, all of my roommates were international students,” said the ottawa native, who studied marine management in dal’s master’s of marine biology program before taking a job at the bedford institute of oceanography in dartmouth.
“i’m not an international student, so it’s much easier for me to complain about building standards, or it’s much easier for me to be the voice for our apartment because i’m in a much more secure position.
“it’s much easier for me to not be worried about being kicked out of the apartment and then being kicked out of school or canada or wherever. so anytime there was a problem, i’d try and deal with it. but there were just a lot of problems.”
and the bigger picture is that no clear outlets or public services exist in nova scotia for tenants and landlords to resolve these kinds of disputes.
former park victoria tenant max gallo-will poses for a photo outside his dartmouth home on friday.
ryan taplin
/
chronicle herald
advertisement
“the real problem is that we don’t really have a system here in the province or in the city where there’s real consequences for landlords when they do this kind of thing,” culligan said.
“even though there’s been these cases against harrington housing, all the decisions just relate to that particular tenancy, so the adjudicators and the director of residential tenancies can’t make any orders that affect the company or the other tenants who are impacted because we’ve decided not to invest in things like a compliance and enforcement unit.
“so what happens is when we do these kinds of claims, we do the claim like in max’s case, but harrington just didn’t show up to the hearing. they don’t even really bother to defend themselves. so we get this order and then it’ll be a struggle to get the money actually paid. there are no consequences beyond that for them, so that’s part of why we are resorting to going public, because the legal system doesn’t provide the kinds of remedies that are necessary to change behaviour.”
a request for comment submitted to harrington housing was not returned.
an example of an accordion-style bedroom door inside an apartment in halifax’s park victoria. – supplied by dalhousie legal aid service
share story
