Living as a Wimpey tenant

As you saw on the previous page, we were blindsided because we thought we now owned Townhouse 81, but found that we were living there as tenants of George Wimpey.

Many of today's owners will be surprised to learn that as first purchasers of a Craigie Orchard townhome, we became tenants of Wimpey Construction; we rented townhouse 81 until the company was able to sell a sufficient number of its units to register the development as a condominium corporation and us as part-owners (see previous story). During that time, our purchase deposit was held in escrow and we paid a rent of about $600 per month.

In some respects it was fun living on a working construction site. We were young and it was a big adventure. Better still, we didn't have to wear hard hats or safety boots to walk home.

In June, 1977 when we moved in, none of the roads were paved and we were still using the "sales office" entrance to the property which ran off of Hurontario street just north of where unit 102 is located. The "North Entrance" from Mineola Road was not opened until a few months later.

An envelope from Wimpey was tucked into the door. "Welcome to your new home" the letter read. Much nicer than the previous one I thought. If you would like to see a copy, click here.

We had completed our pre-inspection the week before and although we had a list of about fourteen items (including a tile floor which had been laid incorrectly) all had been looked after before our move.

We also found out about HUDAC - the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada, a voluntary organization of builders which guaranteed the warranty of our home. HUDAC would come into the lives of the first PCC154 board in the first year of our condo corporation - more on this later. In 1983, the Ontario Government replaced it with the Ontario New Home Warranty Program.

When working on our "can we afford it" budget in March, I had completely miscalculated all the extra costs we would face to make our townhouse a home. We were fortunate in one respect. Just across Hurontario Road and immediately south of the railway tracks (there was no bridge in those days), stood Thompson Lumber - our neighbourhood version of Home Depot. Thompson's had everything a new homeowner could want - paint, timber, curtain hardware, light fittings. If you needed it, Thompson's had it, and they were only a walk away. Today, the south GO Train parking area occupies the former Thompson Lumber site.

Speaking of GO Trains, there were none when we moved in. It was either one of only two Canadian Pacific passenger trains to Toronto, or the local bus. During winter, the first person to arrive at the station in the morning lit the waiting room fire. We quickly got to know the other 10 or so commuters and all took turns during the winter months as the daily fire lighter.

The small shopping plaza immediately to our south was also very convenient. Cousins was the 1977 location of a small Dominion supermarket, complete with squeaky wooden planked floors. Convenience shopping was provided by Mac's Milk, Carl's Pharmacy was our local drugstore. We all knew and loved Carl Horowitz who opened his shop in 1932. He was a great local character but as computers started to take over his world, he decided to retire and sold it to Koko. Last year, Koko decided to retire and so the business moved on. Finally, we had the dry cleaner, the drapery and scuba diving shop. Block Buster, Tim Horton's and the various sports and cycle stores, came much later.

As the months of our tenancy moved on, Wimpey started to get ready for condominium registry. The builder hired Brethour Realty, a company located on Lakeshore, to start filling the position of Manager; Brethour in turn assigned one of its employees Helmi Rahman, to be the on-site manager for we renter/owners.

Helmi was quite a character but a very useful buffer between us and Wimpey. For example, Craigie Orchard's garbage arrangements were quite crude at that time. Each townhouse had a small utility room beside its front door; these were for storage of the week's garbage (no recycling then) and the pickup process was for Helmi to collect the garbage bags from each room once each week and take it to a collection point at the Mineola Construction entrance, where it could be pooled and taken to the Clarkson landfill dump. No city collection for us in those days.

Helmi only had his private car for collection and it was quite a sight to see his vehicle hidden under garbage bags balanced on its roof, hood and trunk, navigating the bumpy unpaved Craigie Orchard roads.

Finally, the small brick garbage enclosures were built which many will remember. These were used for gathering garbage bags until retired when the City's environmental garbage collection system was implemented.

We had some fun with Helmi. I remember the day flat bed trucks arrived delivering a couple of hundred small nursery trees for our plantings. A group of Wimpey employees were marshalled to start digging holes and planting according to the architect's landscape plan. One in front of each home and many along the roads and in the open areas. I watched for a while and then got hold of Helmi.

"Helmi, the guys are planting the trees the wrong way around," I said.

He looked at me as if I crazy so I explained how each tree had a paint mark on one side of the trunk which normally indicated north. Trees had to be re-planted with the same orientation as their original nursery bed planting, to avoid sunlight stress.

Helmi believed me (it's true) and had all the planted trees dug up and rotated. I am probably responsible for many of the 5 foot nursery stock turning into the tall mature growth we see around our property today!

In October, 1977, the day finally arrived when Wimpey had sold enough units to register the development as an Ontario Condominium Corporation, and we changed from being renters ("occupiers") to owners, overnight.