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Dear Fixer,

Our problem is the noise of the regular false fire alarms from 210 Oak Street, the huge ugly assisted housing apartment blocks at the corner of Gerrard St and River Street. Yesterday the maddening BEEP BEEP BEEP of the alarm sounded twice, followed by the usual six fire trucks, sirens screaming. Last week there were 3 events. There is never a fire, and if there were, no resident would respond anyway. I pointed this out to the manager at 3 a.m. one freezing morning in my pyjamas and he became furious and yelled “How many apartment blocks have you managed?” (None.)

Yesterday when I complained about the noise pollution to the police they said there’s nothing they can do, but kindly transferred me to the fire department, where I was told that if these are “malicious fire alarms” the company is charged “tens of thousands of dollars” in fines per year. She didn’t know if this law is actually enforced, but in any case, taxpayers would be paying the fines, and clearly they have no effect. We’ve been woken by these false alarms for the last ten years.

I think the building is poorly managed. As you recall, its residents have been shooting each other lately. Also, the inhabitants of the building facing River Street have a habit of “airmailing” their garbage, some of which is still hanging in the trees.

Can anything be done?

Yours sincerely,

Simon Leigh
227 River Street
Toronto, ON M5A3P9

416 9600235