by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

When Abdul Malik signed a lease for a $440-a-month, three-bedroom flat in Park Extension three years back, he didn't realize that the building would be so incompetently managed that he'd be getting free rent. The father of two, a short-order cook who arrived here from Bangladesh 16 years ago, had seen his apartment at 7590 Durocher turn into such a swamp under the stewardship of landlord Claudio Di Giambattista that the Rental Board first knocked $200 off his rent. This didn't persuade the famously inactive landlord to do some fixin'-uppin,' so last year the Board permitted the tenants to suspend all payments to the landlord.

"I don't know what's wrong with the guy," says Malik. "When I signed the lease [Di Giambattista] wrote down all the repairs he was going to do and never did them. It's very cold in the winter because sometimes the heating works and sometimes it doesn't, there's water dripping down the walls, the backdoor doesn't lock. We're always hearing that they're going to come in and fix it, and that's good news, but we've been hearing that for a year and nothing ever happens."

But in a sort of historic precedent, the city has finally acceded to the demands of tenants' groups and has committed to repair the building this month and then send the bill to the owner, with an added 60 per cent penalty tacked on for good measure. If the owner fails to pay the bill, the city can seize and auction off the building.

The city sometimes does small emergency repairs and sends the bill to the owner, but it took much lobbying from tenants' groups to persuade the city to commit to taking on such a large-scale project.

For Côte-des-Neiges tenants activist Claude Dagneau, the renovations, estimated at $90,000, are welcome, if not late in coming. "The city was supposed to do it in January but three of the four inspectors from that area quit and the file was sent elsewhere. We have always asked that such repairs be done in the cases where it was justified, but not across the board."

Di Giambattista's neglectful ways led the former city administration to condemn two of his buildings in Côte-des-Neiges three years back, forcing 250 out of their home. Rather than repairing the buildings, the city left them empty and the units were eventually sold and rented out to new tenants.

Three of Di Giambattista's other buildings in Park Extension could become the next targets for the same forced repairs.

"I'm happy that it's finally happening," says Dagneau. "I think that it's a good method to regulate certain painful problems that have dragged on for years. This should teach landlords that it doesn't pay to put off repairs."

The bad news for the tenants is that although their homes will finally be renovated, they will have to pay the back rent they were freed from by the Rental Board. In Malik's case that's 12 months at $240 per. "I was prepared for this, so I put my money aside. But still, it's amazing that this can happen."