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These acts were appreciated, noted and acknowledged by the city health and the building inspectors. Their reports were ignored by the city itself. We found out later some diabolical city worker had wanted us to pile our garbage in the local parks so they could condemn us for it. As far as the city was concerned nothing good was to be shown to come out of Rochdale. The ventilation fans that changed the air in the apartments were undersized and some were put in backwards. The impeller for the air conditioning was undersized and caused numerous breakdowns. Malfunctioning heating radiators showed up in the most out of the way places in the building. They had to be found first so they could be corrected. The faulty units usually showed up by blowing and draining the system then the hunt began to find them. These physical and mechanical nasty surprises combined with the habits of the tenants was so overbearing that nobody that took the head position lasted more than about a year. Mike Sloan the man ahead of me being the exception. He lasted about 1˝ years, I lasted about 13 months. There was never enough money to research, plan and make corrections. So, the building went from disaster to disaster just being patched up. Until it was my turn in September of 1972. By that time, we had figured out a lot of the problems and had some ideas of how to fix them but no money for equipment or materials. This is when the building went under siege and was in the process of being taken over by the receiver. The new property manager appointed by Clarkson & Gordon (the receiver) was actually in favour of fixing the building and took a lot of notes on what needed to be done. This ranged from fixing the leaks in the basement floors to maintaining and repairing the boiler on the 18th floor and everything in between. Prior to the take over we had let the tenants paint their own rooms with the colours they chose. They were given a voucher, they went down to Aikenheads Hardware and got their paints. As a result, Rochdale was very psychedelic in physical colour as well as headspace. The building was full of artists and they all had their chance. Somewhere there are pictures of the art in the elevator lobbies. I have mentioned the idea that some tenants tended to trash the building. I would like to clarify that statement. I believe that when a group of people party for an extended period of time their personal discipline breaks down and a lack of concern takes over. Gradually this becomes the norm and the bar of quality is lowered. It was a constant struggle to keep Rochdale at the minimum standards required by the city by-law inspectors who were inspecting us weekly. It was not uncommon to find vomit or dog feces on the hall carpets on some floors while on others everything was clean and beautiful. But that difference did not prevail for the life of the building. Once a floor started to go the wrong way it usually did not come back until the whole floor was vacated. Some dog & cat owners would let their animals run loose and as a result there was dog & cat feces in the hallways, stairwells on the landings & the stairs. Motorcycles would rip up the carpets The tenants constantly had personal dramas that they wanted everybody to know about. There were a lot of self-esteem issues both male and female. There were also a lot of immature spoiled children in adult bodies. These dramas could sometimes develop into traumatic scenes. Sometimes a resident or outsider could not control his/her problems and lashed out. They let us know about their personal internal and external conflicts by trashing different areas of the building. Some destructive activities were in public areas like the lounges, library, public toilets, stair wells, fire escape routes, lobbies, garbage shuts, elevators, etc. Many of these stunts were pulled in their own apartments or the home or business of somebody else. Sometimes is wasn’t a purposeful trash but a fun time experiment gone wrong leaving a bit of a problem behind. Like the wild night we hand painted the 9th floor hall with fresh cut grapes. We gave the walls a texture. Or when we were sharing our room with too many others. So, we built bunk beds and slept in shifts at one point. When an apartment or Ashram was trashed it meant windows broken, broken bottles everywhere, doors ripped off their hinges or out of their tracks, missing building furniture, damaged upholstery, melted candle wax on everything, paint all over the place, food all over the place, refrigerators and stoves ruined, floors (tile, carpet & hardwood) ruined, toilets plugged or broken, etc. In the really bad ones there was running water which over flowed its containment and ran into the apartments below. Trashing of one apartment was usually manageable but when a whole Ashram got hit it would take days and sometimes weeks to get into minimum shape. Fires - I personally fought about 25 fires in the building. Many of them were in the garbage chute and garbage collection areas. Others were apartment base caused by carelessness or inattention. Somebody would always manage to dump smoldering ashtrays into the garbage. The chute was plugged regularly by somebody stuffing over-sized garbage bags into it. Fires would start at different positions in the chute so we never could figure out what floor was causing the most problem. Fires happened several times in the compactor room as well. The fires would melt the chute sending smoke through the building and there would be flames coming out of the chute doors. This was extremely dangerous as the chute was well within the perimeter of the building and could have easily started a towering inferno. Previous Exit Next |