‘Black mold, mice, cockroaches, bed bugs, gangsters:’ evictees tell their side of conditions at City Centre Inn

Robert Deimling and his girlfriend Danesha Clarke were shocked to come home to see a green flyer Wednesday, saying they were to be out of their suite by 3 p.m. Thursday.

The pair says they had been living in the room at City Centre Inn and Suites since August, but Deimling had another answer when asked Thursday.

“Too long.”

Deimling says every other day at the motel, there’s a “stabbing or a murder” and they were paying $975 to live per month at the motel, formerly known as the Northwoods.

That was supposed to include certain utilities that he says just weren’t met, but were promised by owner John Pontes.

“He says, ‘Oh, you get WiFi, cable, heat and hot water.’ Well, there is no hot water. There is no heat,” Deimling said. “The cable sucks. Half the channels don’t work. The WiFi — I could have got better WiFi if I went to a Tim Hortons.”

He also claimed there were issues during the colder months in the hotel.

“Over the wintertime, we had our water cut off for like three months. We’d have to go elsewhere to shower twice a week,” he said. “We’re paying for heat and hot water, yet there’s no heat and no hot water.”

Deimling and Clarke also claimed that they weren’t the only ones living in horrible conditions in the motel.

“(The conditions are) poor. Black mold, mice, cockroaches, bed bugs, gangsters,” Deimling said.

“Yet you pay rent, you do everything that was supposed to be done, mind your own business, and we come home to that on our door? Wow.”

I’m at City Centre Inn, where evicted tenants are cleaning up, and moving out.

Emergency crews are on scene, including @SaskatoonEMO.

Owner John Pontes has just shown up, and is speaking to residents. #yxe pic.twitter.com/7vGzhENwS0

— Brady Lang (@BradyLangSK) July 23, 2020

He says they moved in looking to move up in the world but claimed that “you’re not really moving anywhere, you’re sliding down,” living in those conditions.

Clarke says she was given a room at another hotel, now displaced from her home. But Deimling will not be going with her.

He says he was given a place at The Lighthouse, something he is not in favour of.

“May as well be in a jail,” Deimling said. “I’m better off to rob a bank, they’d be putting me up better there.”

Deimling says he lost his job due to COVID-19. He’s been partially on employment insurance during the pandemic, but that isn’t something he’d like to be collecting.

“I’d much rather be working every day of the week than being around this hole,” he said.

On the other hand, Randy Iron was another person displaced by City Centre Inn’s shutdown.

He was in better spirits and didn’t have much negative to say about his suite.

“It’s a home, right? There’s not much you can say. It’s a room,” Iron explained. “You have to make the best of what the day gives you, every day has a challenge.”

He says it’s a little overwhelming for some, and that many of the others have no idea where they’re going to turn following the closure.

As for Iron, he’s not positive where he’ll be laying his head to rest tonight.

“Who knows?” he said. “Maybe I’ll end up back up in northern Saskatchewan.”

Police no strangers to City Centre Inn and Suites

Another bit of information shared by Deimling was a stabbing at the hotel Wednesday night.

He says he doesn’t know what happened, but that it didn’t look good.

Saskatoon police Insp. Cam McBride confirmed to 650 CKOM that the stabbing did occur at the complex.

He also says the area was a place frequented by city police.

“That particular complex has been drawing significant police resources over the last many years,” he said.

This year to date, McBride says the complex has had 495 calls for service. Those calls include medical, overdoses and violent crime of “every type.”

McBride says with the Saskatoon emergency response teams there now, he’s confident they will send the evictees to the correct support systems.

“To be honest, I know it’s a distribution of people who are being rehoused,” he said. “But I think we really see this as (an) opportunity. I think there were a lot of people there stuck in a bad place.”

McBride added that some living in the complex were involved in criminal activities, but most were either the victim of crime or life circumstances.