Condo Living

November 30, 2024 Published by Huronia Chapter - By Michele Farley

Nuisance Or Risk?

From the CCI Huronia Fall 2024 Condo Buzz Newsletter

From a fire code perspective, the biggest complaints that our office receives, from residents or staff, are odour or smell migration and hoarding. We have evaluated and resolved more of these nuisances then I can count. But in the case of the fire code, a nuisance can be a life safety risk.

Let’s start with odour migration.

Odour migration is smell, that travels from one Suite to another or from the corridor to a Suite more then one would typically expect living in a multi residential building or a townhouse complex. Often, it's simply a pointto- point problem that can be resolved relatively easily once identified. In many cases a resident has been complaining for a very long time about a smell, smoke, cannabis, food, that they can’t stand and will no longer put up with.

In one case it was the president of the board complaining about an odour. He had lived in the building for eight years, the odour had only started two or three years before we were called in to help. This was a little bit unusual because the smells occurred after the resident had lived there for quite some time. After a substantial evaluation we were able to determine two things.

1. The President of the Board had renovated his bathroom and put in pot lights that opened the existing drywall ceiling and exposed crevices above in the original construction, allowing for odour migration into his Unit.
2. We learned that a new Owner had moved into the unit next door a couple of years earlier and they had substantially different cooking habits than the resident that was complaining.

With this information, we were able to identify the source and remedy the problem. The President of the Board ended up having to pay for the cost because it was his initial renovation that opened the fire separation and exposed the interior wall elements to migration.

It’s important to remember that if odour can migrate, smoke can migrate. This is a fire code compliance and life safety risk that must be addressed. If you have an odour migration complaint, document it, get data and if it can't be resolved with your own investigation, get help. Odour migration is often a symptom of a fire safety issue in your building.

What about Hoarding?

Generally, when hoarding becomes a nuisance it's because residents are complaining of odour. They are sometimes seeing bugs, dirt, damage to the common corridor carpeting, or they may have seen the resident of a suspected hoarding Suite squeeze in and out of their doorway. But, most commonly staff become aware of a hoarding concern after they have been informed by Contractors that they cannot get into the Unit to service fire alarm devices, fan coil units, anything that they may have to service within the unit. Hoarding is a delicate situation. On one hand people have the right to keep their home any way they want; but from a safety perspective there are multiple risks a hoarding unit presents, that need to be evaluated and calculated.

These include:

1. The volume of the combustible load within the unit.
2. The means of egress or exits or paths of travel that are obstructed.
3. The life safety devices that may be blocked or damaged or nonfunctional.
4. Base heaters, electrical outlets, electrical power bars with multiple items plugged into them are often covered or blocked with combustible materials.

The greatest challenge is that hoarding is not just a “stuff” problem that can be easily solved, hoarding is a recognized mental health condition and is not a person’s fault.

The most prominent issue to me, as a fire code consultant, is the risk to the residents, to first responders, and others entering the Suite in the event of an emergency. There is also an increased risk to other occupants in Units around that Unit or even in the building in general.

What is the solution? Any process of evaluation will generally be seen by the resident as an intrusion. Care must be taken, whether with legal support or not, to graciously approach the situation, with understanding, with compassion, and with a goal to help remedy the situation. But there is also a safety responsibility here. Hoarding is the significant fire and life safety risk. Evaluations need to be conducted to help you through the process and remedial services offered to help the occupant and the Corporation in resolving this risk. Remember, this is about life safety.

Michele Farley
FCS Fire Consulting Services Ltd.