Rita Barrie and her family have nowhere to go.
The family of five was left homeless Wednesday afternoon after the walls of their Spofford Avenue home began caving in because of damage from Monday’s flooding.
“My house is getting condemned because of the water. My back walls and side walls are caving in,” she said outside her home while emergency crews waited for a city engineer to come assess the severity of the situation.
With no place to go, Barrie’s main concern was her three children.
“I have nowhere else to go. This is my home,” she said tearfully.
North Central fire station’s district chief Les Newman said as a result of the floods, the walls and foundation underneath the house have weakened and there are some areas where the walls are starting to collapse.
“Right now we’ve got everybody out of the house. Everybody is safe,” he said.
As of 5 p.m. they were waiting on city building inspectors to examine the house and determine what would happen next.
John Duczynski lives next door to Barrie and is afraid to go into his house.
“Right now they are worried about the neighbour’s house falling over and it’s going to fall on my house,” he said.
Duczynski’s house wasn’t spared from Monday’s storm. His kids woke him up at 1:30 a.m. saying there was water coming through the walls. Then it started coming in from the shower and then the toilet.
He noticed a foot of water around Barrie’s house and knocked on her door to wake her up.
“The city crews told us to get anything expensive or whatever you wanted to keep out of there as fast as you can and just let it roll,” he said. “We had to let it go.”
“Within an hour we had two feet of shit water, literally. I had a three-foot fountain coming out of the toilet in the bathroom,” he added.
Since 1996, this is at least the fifth time Duczynski’s house has flooded, but never to this extent.
“Ninety per cent of the people in this neighbourhood can’t get flood or sewer water insurance because of previous floods,” he said.
“(Their) house is going to be condemned. How many more houses? Especially in this neighbourhood where you’ve got dugouts and that’s it … you’ve got to think of the health issues for everybody here. How many people want to wake up in an outhouse?” he said.
On Twitter: @JodiL_reporter
