REGINA - Danial Margeson had been dealing with a garbage problem from his next-door neighbours for three years.
This caused his family difficulties, including having to remove all of their items because of a cockroach infestation from the smell of garbage and restricting his kids from playing outside, concerned they could step on a needle.
With no end in sight, recently Margeson saw a person approach the house next door who happened to be the landlord.
From his understanding, the landlord hasn’t come to the home once since the tenants moved in three years ago.
Margeson believes the timing could have been coincidental with his constant complaints to the city or the notice his story has gotten.
The landlord spoke to the tenants for a while before speaking to Margeson. During their conversation, Margeson showed all the pictures of the garbage and damage the tenants did.
He described the landlord’s reaction as "appalled." Margeson added, "he was at a loss for words, as [his] jaw dropped about the whole situation."
Eventually, Margeson found out the landlord gave the tenants an eviction notice, as they were to leave by a certain day.
The day they left, Margeson felt it was a "breath of fresh air" as his worries went away.
He and his wife decided to celebrate by playing music, which included 'We Are the Champions' by Queen.
For Margeson, he’s happy his kids can start to play outside again, and the family can put on barbecues.
Need for more action
After the tenants left, the landlord had people clean up the inside, which Margeson got a first-hand view of.
He described walls being graffitied and floors being torn up.
"The workers [also] had to wear drywall masks to try and protect themselves from the dog feces that they found upstairs," he said.
Seeing the mess, Margeson was concerned for the animals and children who were inside the home while the tenants lived their, calling it a safety hazard.
While Margeson felt bad for the landlord, he also believed he should have done a better job at managing the property while doing more background checks on their tenants.
"He should [have been] showing up a little bit more. If he actually cared about his house, he would put more of an effort into making it [clean] so it doesn't get destroyed."
Margeson said this whole incident also affected his landlord and their on-site worker, too.
"The worker couldn't even come and work on my property line without the neighbours coming out and starting problems and telling us to get off the property."
With the worker feeling unsafe, Margeson called the situation "not right."
"There [always] should be a way to contact the property owner because even my landlord had an issue getting a hold of this guy to help deal with this."
He also believes more action is needed to clean up North Central. While Regina does hire a debris team to primarily pick up trash in North Central and Heritage during the summer, Margeson said it’s kind of sad that there are only four or five people [who are] willing to go that extra mile for our city."
He feels every resident should be pitching in rather than believing Regina is only a dirty city.
Even if the city has to increase taxes to uptick garbage operations, Margeson only sees the benefit of having a cleaner community for children to play in.
