The city promised a registry of vacant buildings last year, but it still doesn’t exist.
There is, however, a new short‑term rental registry – but you can’t check a specific address, so it may not be very useful.
Updates from December, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Thirty families in Montreal North have been made homeless after a major fire Tuesday evening.
Also in the borough, a woman was struck and killed by a city bus on Henri‑Bourassa.
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Kate
Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension borough mayor Laurence Lavigne Lalonde has joined the race to lead Projet into the next election.
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Kate
Four firings at the Cité-des-Prairies youth detention centre have followed La Presse’s exposé of sexual relationships between workers and young male inmates. Criminal charges may follow a police investigation.
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Kate
Musicians who practice in the Cité 2000 building near the new Quartier Molson fear losing their spaces if the building is wiped out in the new development.
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Kate
Although the city had intentions to replace lead water pipes more quickly, rising costs have slowed the program down.
Poutine Pundit
I’ve had to filter my water for the past two years. I got a pitcher and water filters at first, but the city is now asking me to pay for my own water filters, which is a bit rich given that I still pay as much water tax as everyone else but am not getting drinkable water.
maggie rose
Because I live in an apartment building, 100 units, I have little say or info about lead in our pipes. I tried looking up those city lead maps, but they are not well made. I asked my (SHDM) bldg manager a few years back if we had the lead pipes replaced yet. She produced a letter from the city (wish I got a copy) saying nope. I’ve been using brita with the blue filters (best I can afford) that purportedly remove lead, since I don’t trust the reliability of the city continually supplying freebie filters. There was no effort from SHDM to inform all the tenants here and I’m not exactly big on socializing due to extreme gossip-y-ness here. Lead may not affect older people like it does with children, but it still does. Shame on the city.
MarcG
maggie, I just took a look at the city’s lead-pipe map and it seems to work ok for me. I’d like to help you find out if it’s something to be concerned about because uncertainty sucks and you might be needlessly filtering your water.
Here are the steps I followed:
- Open a Chrome browser
- Visit https://services.montreal.ca/presence-plomb
- Accept the conditions by checking the box and clicking the button
- Start typing your address, without the apartment number, in the top left text field
- Select it from the auto-complete options that are presented. If your address doesn’t appear, simply type in your postal code
- Click on the white circle that is linked to your building, you can use the mouse scrollwheel or the +/- buttons in the top right corner to zoom in and out to make it easier to find
- After clicking the circle the left pane will update with the results.
- Under “Résumé”, hopefully you will see “L’entrée d’eau n’est pas en plomb” which means there’s no lead.
maggie rose
Thanks MarcG. This map is much improved from the last time I checked. I easily found my location & status. Though now I’m more confused. “The water inlet should not be lead, because the building was built after 1970 and/or has more than 8 dwellings. January 7, 2022: Inspection – The City’s inspection cannot confirm the material of the water inlet inside the building.” Should not be and cannot confirm. Hmm. Not very definite, is it? Maybe I’ll contact my building managers again. I’m always bugging them about something, so I’ll have to add this to my list. Stressful because SHDM’s managers get long-term illness time-outs regularly and I have to start over again with different ones.
Joey
Regarding the city tests, when the evaluator came to our place a few years ago, I seem to recall she let the water run for a good 45-60 seconds before taking a sample. Doesn’t that up the chances that you’ll get a false negative? My memory’s a bit hazy, but I recall being unconvinced about the ‘negative’ results…
dwgs
I would think that running the water for a minute before testing empties what would have been in your interior pipes, thus ensuring that you’re getting a sample that has recently passed through the entry.
Kate
The building where I live comes up as uncertain results. The evaluator also let the water run before taking a sample, and even at the time he said he thought someone would have to come back and test again.
I’ve been filtering my water into a pitcher for years, though – even the cat gets filtered water, something an acquaintance once laughed their head off at. But I figured, a cat would be getting much more lead per body weight, if indeed there is any lead…
Ian
We were simply told point blank that any place built before the 70s can be assumed to have lead, at least from the street intakes. I use an on-tap filter – removes heavy metals & chlorine. We have a lot of scale in Montreal though with all the limestone so I find filters never last as long as they say they will on the package.
Joey
I guess my point was that unless you’re in the habit of running the water for 45-60 seconds before you use it (after a period of not using it, like hours – not days), the test doesn’t give an accurate representation of how much lead is in your water. I suppose it can determine whether the city’s infrastructure is full of lead, but that’s only part of the equation. We also use a Brita filter (even if our results were negative), which I think is a bit of a shame – cities spend a ton of money, time and expertise to give us high-quality, safe, on-demand drinking water, and yet we all feel an urge to go out and do our own filtering (or just eschew tap water for bottled).
Kate
Joey, I always figure that intermittently flushing the toilet would refresh the water in the pipes, at least to some extent.
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Kate
A couple of medical specialists agree that “normal” Christmas is back as neither Covid nor flu is making much of itself this season.
Meantime, an outbreak of tuberculosis at Bordeaux jail is resulting in reduced sentences.
MarcG
These people should be required to attend the funerals and/or support those who become disabled because of their “yo chill” advice. Here’s some sane advice from Health Canada.
MarcG
They should also be required to comfort those who cannot attend holiday gatherings because they’ve convinced the general public that Covid is no-biggie and anyone who asks for accomodations is mentally ill. Here are some more tips for safer holidays from a group of US scientists and clinicians.
I know someone who is on immune-suppressing medication for a chronic disease, has kids in daycare, and is regularly sick, sometimes requiring hospitalization. The daycare does nothing to prevent illness, aside from sending visibly sick children home, to him, where he does nothing to protect himself. The hospital does nothing to protect him from becoming even more sick when he goes there. With medical specialists like this, who needs the freedom convoy?
jeather 10:14 on 2024-12-18 Permalink
You can check by postal code and it then gives you the address(es) in that postal code, which seems like it covers what’s needed. This doesn’t necessarily work if you are checking out if an Airbnb you are renting is valid, but is great for “is what my neighbours are doing legal?”
Kate 11:52 on 2024-12-18 Permalink
Here’s the registry.