East Van mother shares horror story

Sarah Perrin is a disabled single mother of two living in a subsidized BC Housing unit.

“I don’t pay market value rent, but I pay with something way more valuable than money, I pay with trauma,” she told The Leader Spirit.

Christmas decorations are the best she can do to make the townhouse feel like home in the face of consistent cockroach infestations.

She pulls the refrigerator forward to show the The Leader Spirit team where some of the cockroaches hide in her home.She also points to traces of mould and mice in her home.

“We are always sick, the kids get dizzy when they stand up, everybody is chronically fatigued,” Perrin said.

“BC Housing almost makes me feel less than worthy of having a safe, clean home for my children, and I don’t know why.”

Perrin came forward after seeing a recent The Leader Spirit story about another local mother, Alicia Williams, who was suffering through a similar experience.

Perrin says she had felt alone, even though most of her neighbours in the Culloden Court complex were going through the same thing.

She says she does not hear the fans anymore, which have been blowing for years in an effort to combat the constant dampness that has resulted from, according to Perrin, more than 20 separate floods since she moved in in 2017.

“There was this much water in here the last time it flooded.”

“I lose so much sleep at night when it rains, because I have to keep checking our basement if it is going to flood again,” she added.

She also worries about asbestos flooring, buckling walls, and fire alarms that go off at all hours of the night because rodents have chewed through wiring.

She says the problems are never-ending and rarely addressed.

“When I ask BC Housing for assistance, they hang up, they say they have nothing to help me with, they don’t come.”

BC Housing has confirmed that cockroaches were found in the complex.

However, in the latest pest control treatment of one unit, on October 31, they say no cockroach activity was found.

The Leader Spirit requested an interview with the province’s Minister of Housing, Christine Boyle, but she was not made available.

“Deal with the infestations, the mould. I would like her to put herself in my shoes for 30 days and see if she could last a month in this condition. Because it’s been a long seven years for me,” Perrin said.

“I’m so sorry my kids have to go through this.”

It has been an ordeal that no Christmas decoration can distract from.