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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A family who spent weeks without heat in their apartment last December has moved out of the building but is still fighting the landlord.

Jessica Chaykowski said the heat in the $1,425-a-month, fourth-floor apartment at Ptarmigan Apartments, occupied by herself, her husband Jonathan and their five-year-old son, conked out again in January.

Jessica Chaykowski in her new home downtown, where she, her husband and young son have recently moved to escape the lack of heating and a host of other problems at Ptarmigan Apartments this winter. - Peter Varga/NNSL photo

"We had heat for maybe two or three weeks, then we ended up not having heat again," the 21-year-old mother told Yellowknifer.

In December the family complained to the NWT Office of Environmental Health to have the landlord restore heat, and then took their case to the NWT Rental Officer, Hal Logsdon.

Logsdon ruled Jan. 9 the tenant was not obligated to pay the full month's rent for December. Only an amount of "$807.50 for December's rent which represented the full rent for days the heat was adequate" was to be paid, the ruling stated, "and no rent for the days the heat was insufficient."

Regardless, a few weeks later in late January, the heating was off again and it was back to square one.

By this point, when temperatures hovered between -20 and -40 C, Chaykowski contacted the environmental health officer again, she said.

"The health officer went in and he said 'I understand the systems are old and that they need to be dealt with,'" she recalled. "But then he never made an order for them to be dealt with."

Chaykowski then filed another claim with the rental office, this time demanding their rent and damage deposit back from the landlord, she told Yellowknifer. Even though lack of heating is again the top reason for filing the claim, this time around the Chaykowski's claim doesn't end there. "There's a whole lot of other stuff that has been happening," the mother said.

In her application for a second hearing, to take place around April 1, Chaykowski listed a litany of problems experienced at Ptarmigan. These, she said, include door knobs, locks and bolts that are broken or don't function properly, mold build-up on bedroom walls, missing baseboards throughout the apartment, laminate floors that are detaching, and a crumbling balcony the building manager advised not to use for fear of collapse.

Ptarmigan Apartments is owned by an Edmonton-based company listed as "809656 Alberta Ltd." in rental office documents, otherwise known as Bond Street Properties.

Chaykowski said she spent "hundreds of dollars" of her own money to make basic improvements herself - repairing doors and locks, and purchasing electric heaters in attempts to keep the place warm.

While filing the claim, Chaykowski and her husband decided enough was enough, and moved to another home they found in February.

Though they were scheduled to move in for March 1, their new landlord allowed them to move in earlier, she added, upon recognizing the couple from the story Yellowknifer had run last December on their rental nightmare.

The NWT Office of Environmental Health could not confirm they had found any problems with heating at Ptarmigan the last time they checked on Feb. 5, according to Duane Fleming, chief environmental health officer.

The department's last officer to inspect the premises "was there around Feb. 5," he said. "That was a follow-up."

"We haven't gone there for some time now," added Fleming. "There haven't been any other complaints. There's been no other issues, and as far as we know, everything's operating fine."

Asked about the effectiveness of the environmental health office in dealing with complaints versus the rental office he heads, Logsdon said environmental health is normally more effective at resolving complaints immediately, so long as they involve issues of public health.

"I often refer people to environmental health when there are issues that need to be resolved quickly, like lack of heat," the rental officer said.

"My jurisdiction is a bit broader in terms of remedies available," he said. "I can deal with a wide variety of maintenance and repair problems."

Both offices can order repairs, said Logsdon, although his office can only do so after a hearing, which is normally held four weeks after a tenant's application. Unlike environmental health, the rental office can also order compensation for tenants who believe they have been wronged financially by landlords.