Cockroaches a 3-year nuisance for tenants in Yellowknife building
Tenants of a downtown Yellowknife apartment building say they're fed up with a cockroach infestation that just won't go away.
Residents of Northern Property REIT's Hudson House apartment building say cockroaches have been a problem there for three years.
CBC News spoke with four tenants at Hudson House. Two of them would not talk publicly out of fear of losing their lease.
Gordon Murray had no such qualms.
"I am going to be the worst pain in the derriere that Northern Property has run across," he says. "I want to get their attention."
An exterminator has applied a gel-based pesticide four times this year. Murray says the gel is not working.
He said he wants his landlord to fumigate the building.
"They will have to put up 18 to 20 families for a week and they will have to bring not just one guy with a caulking gun from Edmonton, but they'll have to bring a truck here, a vacuum truck."
Cheril Lim says she sees 10 to 15 cockroaches a day in her unit, mostly at night.
She says she has abandoned her kitchen and thrown out her couch.
She has lived out of boxes since December. She says she doesn't want to unpack until the bugs are gone.
"We can't really move either, because we are scared we will transfer the cockroaches to another place," she said.
Another round of pesticide this week
Northern Property REIT says it will look into fumigating, but says it trusts that the pest control company knows what it's doing. The exterminator will apply the gel to the entire building again on Friday.
Peter Workman, chief environmental officer with N.W.T.'s Department of Health and Social Services, says he's satisfied the landlord is dealing with the problem.
"From what I have seen from the information, this is something that is ongoing, and they are dealing with the situation as they can."
The N.W.T. Rental Office says it has received complaints about the cockroaches, and is holding a hearing on the matter.
One-bedroom units in the building rent for $1,300 a month.