Pandora St. landlord says she wanted to fix up the house

BURNABY (NEWS1130) – The owner of a run-down house on Pandora St. in East Vancouver insists she wanted to fix up the property before a fire in late December killed three men.

Speaking at a coroner’s inquest into the deaths, Joyce Leong says she was not running a rooming house and did not put padlocks on doors throughout the home.

She says they weren’t locked, despite photos to the contrary.

Leong says she only got cheques from four men in the house, not cash from a basement tenant who already testified.

Shown photos of holes in walls, roofs, and dirty rooms, and asked if this was acceptable to live in, Leong would simply describe the photos.

She says she wanted to fix up the house but wanted all the tenants to move out first so they wouldn’t dirty it up afterward. Leong claims the men could not find another place to live.

“My mistake is I have too soft a heart,” she said.

Several times, the coroner told Leong to focus her answers.

Inquest lawyer Rodrick MacKenzie suggested Leong was taking money from up to nine tenants and the government, and pocketing the money instead of using it to fix up the house.

“No, I swear on my life,” she said.

After the inquest wrapped up for the day Leong fled from reporters and refused to speak.

City staff say they tried to have house fixed up

A Vancouver city inspector says she felt Leung thought repair orders were a nuisance.

Pamela Kiselbach visited the home numerous times between 2007 and 2010 and issued several orders to the owner. She testified repairs were made several times, but when she returned for another inspection things were back to the way they were originally.

She thinks Leung thought she was doing a service by housing so many men who wouldn’t normally get a room. When the Coroner asked how Kiselbach felt after hearing that a fire had killed three men, she said she was devastated.

“I was their good little inspector from City Hall,” she said.

The city’s former Inspections Manager Carlene Robbins says she asked several inspectors to scour the home in June 2010 with a “very critical eye,” adding that staff might find something to justify shutting off the power and ordering people out. Staff said there was not enough evidence to order the home to be cleared.

Robbins says the real threat was either prosecution or a special hearing to see if the city would revoke the homeowner’s business license.  She says it was frustrating to deal with the home and its owner and added that it had a “cycle of compliance.”

Yesterday, a former tenant who lived in the basement testified that no smoke alarms in the home worked and that he was surprised more people weren’t killed.

Dwayne Rasmussen, Garland McKay and Steven Yellowquill lost their lives in the blaze that is blamed on a short-circuited extension cord attached to some Christmas lights.