A rental building in Toronto has left its residents with no heating since the beginning of March, and there's currently no end it sight.

On March 4, residents of 16 St. Joseph Street — a rent-controlled building in Church Wellesley Village —received a notice from Akelius, the building's management company. It stated that the building would be without heat due to an HVAC upgrade, but nearly three weeks later, tenants are still shivering.

"The steam boiler has run its course and is beyond repair," the notice reads. "We have proactively installed [a] heating/cooling fan coil system which requires an electrical system upgrade."

The communication then goes on to say that Toronto Hydro would have to perform an "electric system switch over," and that Akelius has reached out to Hydro to request the process be expedited.

According to residents, though, that rush never happened. Nor has Toronto Hydro come by.

The notice sent to residents of 16 St. Joseph Street. Photo by Mara Ravins.

"At the moment, there are a significant amount of people in the building getting sick because of the lack of heat and the situation is impacting their mental health," 16 St. John Street resident, Mara Ravins, tells blogTO.

"A few tenants are staying with friends and family, as the cold is unbearable."

Ravins, who has lived in the building since 2000 and who takes great pride in the maintenance of her own unit, says that management has offered a few bandaid solutions to the problem, but nothing concrete that helps.

For example, Akelius mentions in the original note that space heaters are available for tenants struggling with the cold. But, Mara says, the building — an over 100-year-old brownstone — hardly has the electrical infrastructure to support them.

"Thank you for your offer of a heater, however the electrical system in my apartment cannot support two heaters running at the same time. It blows fuses, so the apartment remains cold," Mara wrote in a complaint to building management that she shared with blogTO.

For those who have been running space heaters, though, Akelius is offering to subsidize their heightened Hydro costs, offering a sliding scale of $100 to $150 depending on the size and style of the unit.

The company is also covering a portion of tenants' rent for March, but, Mara says, the problems are outweighing the solutions.

"A lot of people in the building feel that it is senseless to vocalize their concerns based on past experiences of the landlord politely acknowledging but not adequately addressing issues," she tells blogTO.

At the heart of residents' concern is the ambiguity of when the problem will be resolved, having been given no indication from either Akelius nor Toronto Hydro when the residence will have heat again.

"We are currently pushing Toronto Hydro for resolution and working with the MPP to expedite this hydro connection," Kristian Pandurov, a representative from Akelius, tells blogTO.

"At this point we are expecting a new schedule from Toronto Hydro next week," he says, noting, as Mara had, that residents were offered rent and hydro rebates as well as space heaters.

Pandurov also notes that the building management investigated using generator for the interim, but weren't able to find a feasible solution.

In the meantime, Mara and the rest of the residents of 16 St. Joseph Street remain in the dark (and in the cold) about when they will have heating again.

"Our situation at 16 St. Joseph Street is a stark reminder of the challenges tenants face in securing safe and comfortable living conditions," Mara says.

This isn't the first time Akelius has been in the news in Toronto. Back in 2020, the UN accused the Sweden-based corporation of human rights abuses against its tenants, which Akelius denied.