Tenants to move out of McMaster residence for 6 days due to water quality issues | CBC News
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Tenants living in McMaster University’s residence on 10 Bay St., in downtown Hamilton will have to move temporarily into nearby hotels as the school tries to address lingering water issues in the building.
The school’s housing and conference services department sent an email to students Tuesday, saying it would pay for hotel accommodations from Feb. 4 to Feb. 9 and give them $100 per day for food over the six days.
“Honestly, it is very frustrating,” Alphonsus Ballesteros, a tenant in the building, told CBC Hamilton on Wednesday.
Tenants have complained about issues since they moved in and spoke with reporters in December, saying the school wasn’t doing enough to address numerous issues in the unfinished $100-million, 30-storey building.
McMaster spokesperson Wade Hemsworth previously said the school opened the lower floors of the building to tenants in the fall of 2023 while upper floors were still being built “because we know how challenging it is for students to find safe and academically supportive housing.”
One of the key issues since then has been poor water quality. The building’s water, which has appeared murky and white, has tested positive for total coliforms bacteria since at least December.
WATCH: Tap water in McMaster residence was previously white and murky
McMaster graduate students living at the school’s downtown residence say the conditions inside are terrible.
A web page from Public Health Ontario states water with total coliforms is not likely to cause illness but “may be unsafe to drink” because it indicates “your water supply may have been contaminated by more harmful microorganisms or may be a sign of bacterial regrowth.”
McMaster has said its experts “assured” the school the water won’t cause severe illness but also previously told students if they want to take extra precautions they could boil their water before drinking it or to add bleach when cleaning their dishes, among other suggestions.
It also supplied bottled drinking water on all floors, chlorinated the water system and implemented a schedule to regularly flush the system.
School says the ‘inconvenience’ is necessary
In the school’s Tuesday email to tenants, it said the temporary move would be necessary because of the “size and complexity of the plumbing at 10 Bay.”
The plan would be to do an extended chlorination treatment of the whole building to ensure pipes from the main building, water supply and in-unit plumbing and fixtures are treated.
“While we recognize this is an inconvenience, the success of this approach requires the complete isolation of all water sources in the building and access to all units in the building,” read the email.
“If any residents use the water system, it may compromise the testing and the ability to address the treatment.”
Maintenance teams will also enter units to clean and replace hardware underneath kitchen sinks and clean cartridges inside bathroom faucets and shower heads.
The school said it will make accommodations for tenants including:
- Paying for their hotel stay and ensuring all hotels are within walking distance of 10 Bay.
- Provide paid transportation to and from the hotel on Feb. 4 and Feb. 9.
- Provide $100 pre-paid credit cards per resident, including children and partners, per day for food and pre-paid credit cards worth $100 for the six days for other personal arrangements.
- Contact residents with kids and people with special accommodations to ensure they’re supported.
- A rent reduction of 25 per cent for February.
- Hosting online community information sessions.
Tenant says moving will be ‘frustrating’
Ballesteros said the school’s plan doesn’t work for him.
Ballesteros isn’t a student like many of the tenants in the building but lives with his partner, who is a student. Working from home full-time, Ballesteros said moving into a hotel will be disruptive.
He said the water issue has been “persistent” and the school hasn’t found a solution fast enough. He added the school should’ve gave tenants more notice about the temporary move.
And Ballesteros said the water quality issue is only one of several problems to fix.
He said having workers come into his unit regularly to address issues over the past few months has been “ridiculous.”
“I feel like there’s just not much privacy anymore,” Ballesteros said.
He said he has a simple message to the university: “Stop apologizing and do better,” he said.
“We need to have a livable space, not being exposed daily to construction noise.”
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