JESUS!  I’ve got one photo that’ll scare the robes off you…

First and foremost, let’s talk about a-holes.

Let’s talk about d-bags.

Let’s talk about the kind of guy that:
a) drives a stupid car like this
b) takes up two spaces
c) both of the above

To drive a car like this, you have to be a completely self-absorbed, cliche-Jersey-shore-type guy who likely has really long, thin sideburns, and listens to music with deep-bass – the kind of bass that is uncomfortable to listen to, but makes people turn their heads and look…

FYI – when a d-bag like this takes up TWO parking spaces simply because he’s a d-bag, you’re legally permittted under Canadian Criminal Code v 2.9, section 14.1b, paragraph 4z to spit directly onto his windshield and put your gum on his driver’s-side mirror…

Somebody thought this looked…..good?

Unless Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, and Venus Williams are living in this house, I don’t quite understand the logic behind using tennis balls in place of some felt-stickers to keep the floors from scratching.  Not only that – some scratches on that floor might actually give you an excuse to replace them!  They’re awful!

This is how you know, with absolute certainty, that the owners of the house are in their 80′s or 90′s.

It reminds me Frank Costanza in Seinfeld, describing why he and his wife share two single beds: “Thirty years ago, Estelle and I came to an agreement.  It was the only way I could get some sleep.  Estelle’s got the jimmy-arms.”

This is, by far, the biggest deadbolt I’ve seen inside a condominium.

I’ve been in condos in some pretty ghetto areas, and I’ve still never seen anything like this!

I think the resident of this condo is a weee-bit neurotic…

Picture a small, 6 x 4 foot balcony, and a gigantic sattelite dish that you’d expect to see on the side of a house.

Now, look at the condo balcony in the photo below.  Was it exactly what you pictured?

The photo below demonstrates staging for psychos.

This sad little desk sat at the end of a thirty-foot-long room, and was eerily reminiscent of a scene from Criminal Minds where they flash back to the serial killer’s childhood, and we see him sitting at a desk in the corner of the room, quietly drawing, by himself.

Last but not least, we have a shrine to…..some undistingishable, long-haired man.

Well, we all know I’m not the most religious man in the world, but even if I was, I don’t think I’d want fifty different photos of this man – and believe me, this photo does the situation no justice!  There were fifty photos!

Weirdness aside, I can’t imagine the conversation that the listing agent had with the seller.  Can you imagine being called in for a listing appointment and seeing THIS?  I just spent the weekend going through three different client’ properties and telling them, “You have nine shirts in your closet.  I told you that you could only have seven, and they all have to be an inch apart; these are 3/4 of an inch…”

If you don’t think that the presentation of the property matters, then I’m the wrong agent for you…

If only I could take a video-camera into this condo and put it on my blog…

Is any space, really, truly “unlivable?”

Okay, that’s easy.  Living under a bridge is unlivable.

Except, wait….some people do that.

The words, “I can’t live like this!” are thrown around quite often, but that’s usually a star of “The Real Housewives of Muskogee, Oklahoma” referring to only having three kinds of caviar and not the four that were promised…

So let’s talk about condos for a moment, and talk about what makes a condo unlivable in terms of the layout.

A poor layout has angles, nooks, crannies, slants, and wasted space.

A good layout is often referred to as a “square plan.”

More often than not, the squarer the floor plan, the better the layout.  There are always exceptions in the rule (so please don’t hate me forever because your living room has a slight v-shape in the corner), but for the most part, a square plan will minimize wasted space, and avoid oddly-shaped walls that make furniture placing a nightmare.

Here is a condo floor plan that I found online, then made a few changes to just for fun, but it shows a square plan (FYI – a rectangle is still a square plan), and it shows no wasted space:

Now again – this is just for the purpose of demonstration.  I know this isn’t the best floor plan in the world, and I know one person would want this, and one person would want that, but I’m just saying that when you have a square, you’re not going to waste space, and it’s really the path of least resistance.

Critics will call this “boring” or suggest it’s too common, but again – that’s not the point.  The point is that there is no wasted space, no odd angles, and furniture placement is a breeze.

The point is that this floor plan is far, far better than something like this:

Okay, so I just drew that up in paint, but you get the point!

There are thousands of terrible floor plans in Toronto condominiums, and many of them could be avoided.

There’s nothing wrong with an angle or two, but how many CityPlace condos have bedrooms with eight walls?

So that brings me to the world’s worst floor plan.

This is something I came across in my travels, and something that I find utterly shocking.

It’s something that, to me, represents an impossible sale.

Here it is, in all its glory:

A goddam TRIANGLE!

Imagine living in that space.  Seriously - just imagine it.

Can you picture yourself in that space?

No?  Alright, how about now:

Now that I’ve added a cute monkey, and an even cuter photo of me holding a giant sword in one hand and a scary toy doll in the other, can’t you see how magical it would be to live in this triangular-paradise?

The bedroom is barely large enough to fit a bed, and while they’ve eliminated the triangle-shape by putting a closet in the corner of the triangle, thus squaring the wall (except now your closet won’t fit clothing…), we can’t ignore that the room has no window!

The living room, however, is a disaster.

First, consider that most agents would call this “living/dining,” even though you can barely fit a chair and a tv.

Second, look closely and you’ll see that your couch would have to be adjacent to your kitchen appliances, or two feet from your toilet and sink.

Lastly, how would you fit ANYTHING in that bizarre triangle?

Perhaps the owner should look into custom furniture – something that would wedge perfectly into that 60-degree angle!  Or, just take your grandmother’s oak corner-cabinet, and maybe all the Royal Doulton figurines that come with it!

Either way, I think the unit would look ten times worse in person than it does in this floor plan.

So who then is the buyer for this unit?

The only word that comes to mind is “investor,” but then the follow-up question becomes, “Who the heck would rent this place?”

Have a look at these two artist-renderings of the new building on the northeast corner of Front & Bathurst.

“Reve” is the red building in the centre of the first photo, and the new Minto/Freed project is the white building with the trees in the forgeround:

Leaving aside the style for a moment, because that’s a whole other blog post, what do you think about the fact that the new Minto/Freed project will actually attach to Reve?

A colleague of mine suggested the other day, “There’s a rule that all buildings must be at least 5-metres from other structures,” but I don’t know where he got this from, or whether it’s even remotely accurate.  And even if this actually were in the building code, there’s always applications, appeals, and end-arounds that can ensure a developer can do what suits them.

We’re now beyond “building close to another condo,” as this takes things to a whole other level when we’re actually attaching condos to existing condos!

Nobody’s view is safe in the city of Toronto, but what about your balcony not being fifteen feet away from either another person’s balcony, or a brick wall?

It’s too bad.  I actually liked Reve, both from a design standpoint, as well as layouts and finishes of the units.  But anybody with a west “view” is going to be severely disappointed in a couple years…

If you’ve never coached before, you should give it a shot.  I did, and it changed my life…

I remember back in 2006 when I was very bummed-out, perhaps even depressed, and a friend of mine called me and simply said, “Meet me at Leaside Memorial Arena on Saturday at 10am.”  I asked him why, and for what, but he just said, “meet me,” so I did.

I arrived at the arena and received a text message saying, ”inside…front row,” and I found my buddy standing right up against the glass, taking in all the action.

He handed me a coffee, and we chatted about life, and over the next hour, we watched eight and nine-year-old kids play a game of hockey.

I love hockey, as do all red-blooded Canadians.  But I never thought I’d enjoy watching kids play hockey.  It’s obviously not the same thing as the NHL, but you know what?  If you love a sport, you’ll love it at any level, and that’s what I learned.  The game was fascinating!  There were no advertisements on the ice, and those on the boards were for local businesses.  There was no commentary and/or announcer, no product give-aways, and no commercial breaks.  The cheers after goals were scored by the kids were genuine, as were the smiles on their faces – hardly seen through their masks.

After the first game, we watched another.  This time it was 10-11 year old kids, and the game was similar, yet different.  They were a little faster, and the disparity between the good ones and bad ones wasn’t as pronounced.

We watched three games that Saturday afternoon, drank a lot of coffee, ate a Fun Dip for the first time in two decades, and shared a lot about our lives.  I left that day feeling a lot better, and it helped get me out of a funk.

The next year, in 2007, I started something that I plan to (and hope to!) continue for the rest of my life.  I started coaching kids baseball.

This season marks my sixth season overall, and it all started in McSorley’s Saloon on Bayview Avenue when another friend of mine and I were joking around about how we’d be the worst baseball coaches in the world, and somewhere in between peanuts and pitchers of beer, we decided to coach baseball.

As luck would have it, there were six pee-wee teams, and all six had coaches.  But the bantam league would LOVE to have us!  I found out why, weeks later, when I met our 16 and 17 year old boys for the first time.

I was 26 years old at the time, and I was out of touch with “kids today.”  Man, a LOT had changed in a decade!

My friend Greg suggested we give them a “survey” with questions like “Who is your favorite baseball team” and “Who is your favorite player.”  I thought they were a little old for that, but we gave it to them anyways.  They made a mockery of the document, especially the question “What do you hope to accomplish this year at baseball?”  I won’t even tell you some of their answers…

Greg and I were both new to coaching, but we took to it pretty quickly.  We played good cop, bad cop, with Greg being the happy-go-lucky, glass-half-full coach, and me being the heavy, all the time, every game.

I didn’t know it at the time, but in 2007, one of the kids would give me a label that would stick to this day; something that might stick for many, many years.

Outside of real estate, this blog, and into my very personal life, a lot of my friends call me by the nickname “Pipes.”

I remember arriving at the baseball diamond one day in 2007, and our starting catcher, Sean Caley, yelled, “Yo, whuddup, PIPES!”  I thought nothing of it at the time, since kids’ lingo changes daily and I can never keep up, but throughout the rest of the game, kid kept calling me “Pipes.”  I can’t understand half the terms they use, and when somebody says, “That’s my skeeez, baby,” I need to have it explained that “skeez” refers to one’s persona/hobby/being.

The next game, after I had been called “Pipes” a few dozen times but never really acknowledged it, a kid named Matt Fulton was getting on my nerves and fired back at me, “Geez, chill out, GUNS.”  Instinctively, I turned around and yelled, “It’s PIPES!  Not guns, Pipes!”  I have no clue what prompted me to do that, other than the fact that Matt could have said anything at that point and I’d have yelled at him, but before I could take it back – all the kids were laughing and clapping.  “Piiiiiiipes!!!!”  The nickname was mine for good.  Sean later explained that the nickname stemmed from my push-up demonstration one morning where, apparently, I ripped off my sweater and started repping out, arms blazing, showing the kids how it was done.  Yeah, sounds like something I’d probably do…

In our first three years together, Greg and I won three championships.

I now partner with my buddy Tucker, and we’ve lost the championship two years in a row, but I think this year’s squad has the making of a dynasty!

What’s even more amazing is that two of my current co-coaches are former players.  And what’s even more amazing than that, is one of these co-coaches is a kid I detested while he was playing on my team.

Ah yes, Peter Forte.  Perhaps the most disrespecftul, entitled, brazen kid I ever coached, who always spoke out of turn, and never listened to authority.  The kind of kid who, when you asked him if he knew why you volunteer your time to coach, would reply, “Well, I guess you just like little boys.”  But a couple years later, I saw Peter at the gym after he was back from univiersity, and he asked if I needed help coaching.  He had really matured as a person, and turned out to be intelligent, sincere, and very hard-working.

For the last two seasons, and into 2012, Peter has been my “pitching coach,” and he’s helped me twice a week without fail.  He’s an unbelievably talented kid – the kind of guy you’re going to say “I knew him once” years down the road.  He did a cover of Carly Rae Jespen’s “Call Me Maybe” where he edited together hundreds of hours of video of university students all over Canada lip-synching to the video.  Check it out HERE If you have time – you won’t be disappointed.

The aformentioned Sean Caley has been named “batting coach” for 2012, but it’s just an excuse to stay out of trouble…..I hope…

We play every Saturday morning, and usually 1-2 week-nights, which is tough to balance when I work seven days per week, but most of my clients understand.

I probably wouldn’t put baseball ahead of hockey and golf as my favorite sports to play, but when it comes to coaching, I find baseball to be the best balance of sport and camaraderie.  It’s not as intense as hockey, which is often far too intense for a bunch of kids that aren’t going to the NHL.  Far too many parents live vicariously through their teenage sons; pushing them too hard to play a game that removes a lot of the fun they should otherwise experience.  Baseball is a pretty relaxed game, and the kids get to be social.

I honestly can’t tell you how much fun we have in the dugout, at practice, and basically anywhere in between.  I’m not your typical coach.  I tell the kids, “I’m not some dad who shows up to practice wearing dress pants and a sweater tied neatly over the shoulders of another sweater.”  I have no problem talking to these teenagers like they’re exactly that: teenagers.

Coaching 15, 16, and 17-year-old kids isn’t just about baseball.  It’s about life too.

At the start of every year, I tell the rookies – those that are 14-15, that they’re entering the toughest phase of life, and the phase that for me personally, was absolutely brutal.

In the past six years, I’ve dealt with all kinds of issues.

I’ve had kids talk to me about drugs, sex (lots of it…), booze, partying, school grades, university, and their futures.

I’ve had one kid come to me with a pregnancy scare.

I had one kid call me when he was kicked out by his parents.

I’ve kept in touch with a lot of the kids, and last weekend ago, I hired two of them to come to my condo and load 200 bags of garden soil into the elevator and out onto my terrace.

I’ve had beers with a few of the kids, now that some of them are 21-22 years old, and I’ve helped some kids apply to school, get jobs, and figure out their lives.

A few of them slip through the cracks.  There are some kids you just can’t get through to.

This one kid back in 2008 was destined for failure.  He showed up at my practice chewing tobacco, and I told him never to do that in front of me again.  The next practice, he deliberately spit tobacco juice down onto my cleat, and I slapped him in the mouth – tobacco flying everywhere.  He said, “Ha – you’re F**** now, Pipes!  I can tell my parents you slapped me and you’ll be in deep!”  I calmly replied, “Right, or, I could knock on your door tonight, sit down at the kitchen table with your parents, and explain to them how you chew tobacco, smoke cigarettes, and drink in the McDonald’s parking lot every Saturday night in between smoking blunts.”  He got all sheepish and said, “Pipes….please….please don’t call my folks.”

He dropped out of high school, and went from Pet Smart to Jack Astor’s.  I could never get through to him.

Another kid made my bad-books when he surmised, “The world is different today because kids today fight back!”  I asked, “Against what?”  And he said, “Against our parents – against authority.”  I asked him why he needed to fight back against parents that work sixty hours per week to provide him with a mansion in Leaside and a room filled with video games, and he said, “Man, whatever.  F*** THAT!”  He just kept saying “whatever,” which is a synonym, of course, for “I’m losing this argument.”

There are always some surprises.  One of my favorite kids – a kid that as a 14-year-old, raced on his bike five blocks to catch me in my car to say, “Coach, I wanted to shake your hand and thank you for a great season!”  A couple of kids said they saw him at a strip club in London, sitting in pervert’s row, with both ears pierced, and long shaggy hair.  I can’t put that image together with the image of that polite, thoughtful kid from four years ago.

I know that kids are kids, and they’ll always think like kids, act like kids, and disappoint us with their comments and actions, but I also think that I’m not (yet) too old for them to group me with their parents, teachers, and other authority figures they despise.  I can get through to these kids and give them some guidance, whether they take it all the way or not.

I’ve seen some real talent over the years too!

In 2008, Scott Hayden struck out 89 batters in 40 innings.  Think about that – do the math.  Even if you’re not a baseball enthusiast, you’d acknowledge that striking out 2 1/4 of every 3 batters, every inning, all season, is something magical.

Scotty Leathem had a .765 batting average in 2007.  That’s a record that will never be broken!  Neither will Eric Mercer’s six homeruns in one season.  The next highest is three…

This year, “Spartacus” wants to break Tommy Lee’s 2009 record of 33 stolen bases in 15 games.  Every kid on our team has a nickname; just ask Leo The Barber, although he doesn’t know why we gave him that nickname….yet…

I would encourage any of you, if you can spare the time, to get involved with youth sports.

As I said – it’s not just about the sports (although I do stress that ‘having fun’ is a by-product of winning, therefore winning is everything), as these kids are living in a far more complicated world than we ever did.  I can’t fathom being a 15-year-old kid  in 2012, and I had a hard enough time in 1995!

And if you’re ever at Bayview & Eglinton on a Saturday morning between 10am – 12pm, come by and say hello.

Our team is called “Bosley Real Estate,” to nobody’s surprise…

Agree or disagree with this story, it’s fantastic insight.

“WHAT’S REALLY BEHIND CANADA’S CONDO BUBBLE
By: Diane Francis
Financial Post
May 5, 2012

The condo bubbles in Toronto and Vancouver are caused by foreign speculation and are making housing unaffordable. This creates financial risk for Canadians in terms of government-insured mortgages. But there’s another issue of vital concern to taxpayers.

There are three times more condo high-rises being built in Toronto than in New York City and seven times more than in Chicago. This boom not the market at work but is manipulation by “hot money” from abroad.

“I have come across something I find astonishing, and which amounts to systemic tax fraud by investors, mostly foreign, on a massive scale,” wrote an investor involved in the industry.

He explained how it works: 1. Foreigners sign an agreement of purchase for a condo unit, or for 50 at a time, and put down a 5% deposit. This buys a right to purchase the unit later at a fixed price. In financial markets, this is known as a derivative.

2. Many developers include in the agreement of purchase the right to “assign” this right to buy at a fixed price. In financial markets, this is called creating a futures market. This assignment of a right to buy at a fixed price turns buyers into speculators (unless they want to move in or rent out the unit) who are set up to flip the units for a profit as prices are pushed upwards.

3. Some developers and intermediaries are in the business of helping speculators flip their rights and pocket a fee for doing so. For instance, Mr. X from Asia pays $15,000 for the right to buy a $300,000 condo. Then, when the price of similar units rises to $400,000, he can assign the right, get his deposit back and make the $100,000 difference. There is a speculation frenzy going on that makes prices escalate so rights can be bought and resold over and over again before a building is completed.

4. The paperwork for these agreements is kept in-house, and my source said one intermediary told him that there are no T-5s issued to the speculator or to the Canada Revenue Agency, something that stock and futures market intermediaries must do so taxes can be paid on the $100,000 trading profits. Instead, the profits vanish, possibly along with the paperwork, and taxes paid will be by the end user if they buy, rent out the unit and make a capital gain down the road.

“[Condo] brokers tell me I can flip my assignment and pay no tax and there is no paper trail. They say, ‘We do it all day long,’ ” said the investor who asked to remain anonymous.

Under CRA rules, foreigners making Canadian-sourced income are fully taxable by the federal and provincial governments. In Ontario or British Columbia, the total tax bill would be 46% or $46,000 in tax for $100,000 profit.

The unpaid taxes could be staggering, said a real estate agent. In Toronto, 20,000 condo units have been sold each year for the past five years. Let’s assume one-quarter were sold to foreign speculators who flipped the assignment and made $100,000 profit without paying taxes. Their Canadian-sourced income would total $500-million a year, and they would owe 46% of that in taxes, or $230-million.

Most condo developers may not be involved in this game, but a few – notably developers with Asian and Middle East owners or backers and buildings located in downtown areas – certainly are.

So this is what must happen. As I argued last week, Ottawa must forbid the purchase by foreigners of any residences in Canada. Australia did this in 2010 after foreign speculation and tax evasion damaged its housing market.

The Canada Revenue Agency should send in auditors to the lawyers and intermediaries and developers who have the lists of those who signed agreements of purchase. If they did not close on those deals, and the deals sold for more money than the agreements, then auditors must work backwards and assess income taxes.

The Ontario and other securities commissions should get involved because what is happening, if these reports hold true, is an unregulated financial futures market is being created using and abusing Canadian residential properties as vehicles. Likewise, the federal and provincial government tax collectors should get involved.

If speculators who owe taxes are long gone – many of them are offshore funds that buy out entire buildings then sell units abroad – then the intermediaries and developers should pay the taxes.

This frenzy is forcing prices upwards. Meanwhile, condos in the suburbs often take months to sell because buyers want them as homes, not as convenient money machines to flip.

The investor who described the tax shenanigans took his information to several politicians and called the CRA hotline, but got nowhere. Tax officials said they needed specific foreigners’ names and addresses to investigate, but this is beyond a simple case. This requires a task force to look into the issue.

A realtor said ordinary foreigners are buying from “funds” that are bundling units in Toronto and promising huge returns.

“Foreigners have been lured into so-called investment products, property units, with promises of high yields,” wrote this real estate professional. “They are often small investors who go to property seminars overseas. Many of these buildings do not allow Canadians to buy these units, obviously, because of the tax implications.”

The Australians were victims of the same shenanigan and shut it down. Now Canada must too.

This is nothing new, to me, at least.

The only difference here is that the astute Ms. Francis has drawn the obvious comparison to a futures market, which is something we’ve had in the Toronto real estate market for quite a long time now.

There is one aspect of the article I disagree with, however, and that is the presumption that the foreign buyer only puts 5% down.  The initial deposit might only be 5% (actually it’s $5,000 with the balance of 5% within 30 days), but subsequent 5% deposits are normally staggered around 90 days, 270 days, 360 days, and then upon closing.

Many new developments require upwards of a 25% downpayment before final closing.  I don’t know of many developments these days that will let you write up a deal with only 5%.

Years ago, 5% was available, but it rarely is anymore.

The standard was always made out to be 20%, but in actual fact, you could ask the girl at the sales centre to draw up an offer with 10%, and they’d take it.  They were fine, so long as all the Joe-Schmoes off the street would sign up for 20-25%.

Over time, developers began to realize that demand was so high, they could stop offering 5-10% deposits, and begin to jack up the rates.

Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a project that doesn’t want 20% total before occupancy, so perhaps this article is a tiny bit misleading.  I just don’t want people to think it’s as easy as it’s made out to be in the article.  And in order to make these so-called $100,000 profits that are alluded to in the article, you’d have to hang on for the entire duration of the pre-sales, construction, and occupancy.  Well, to be honest, you’d have to get into a time machine and go back to 2007 when pre-construction actually produced $100K profits, but I think I’ve beat that horse to death and beyond…

So if some or many of these foreign investors pulled their money out, would the ‘house of cards’ collapse?  Personally, I don’t think so.  Not an utter collapse.  Sure, prices would drop, but that’s true of any market where supply and demand shift.  Is there anybody out there naive enough to  say “Less demand doesn’t matter – prices will keep rising”?  Well, okay, I’m sure there are, but they’re just pure salespeople and aren’t being honest with themselves, let alone the public.

If foreign investment pulled out, yes, prices would decline.  But to what extent is unknown, and who says foreign investment is going to pull out anyways?  This article makes no claim on that subject.

The taxation issue is a very interesting point, and it is something I wish our government would chase down.  It’s a pipe-dream, but it’s money that ultimately comes out of our pockets as taxpayers.  Remember that a capital gain on a primary residence is tax free, so if condo owner sells their $350,000 condo for $450,000, that $100,000 is tax-free.  But they paid $350,000 as an assignment to a foreign investor who paid $250,000 to the developer – so there is a $100,000 gain that is unaccounted for, and untaxed.

Revenue Canada: it’s your move…

A “resident” threw a raging party in my building that went awry.  A fifteen-year-old resident…

Friday night was pretty good, up until about 10:30pm…

I went to see Jerry Seinfeld with my family at the Sony Centre, and he was absolutely vintage!  Even better than he was 2-3 years ago when I saw him at Massey Hall.

We went out for a bite to eat at Jason George on Front Street, and after a couple of drinks, I thought, “Maybe I’ll go home and have a couple more.  Maybe tonight will be the night I’ll get a couple drinks in me and try to relax.”

Wow, was I ever wrong.  There would be no relaxing when I got home on Friday night…

My fiancée and I came home around 10:30pm, and we took the elevator up with two kids that looked like they were 13-14 years old, both quiet and staring at the floor.  They got off on the ninth floor with us, and followed us to our unit.  I turned around and said, “Are you looking for the party room?”  They nodded ‘yes,’ and I said, “It’s down the hall – the room that says “PARTY ROOM outside.”

That’s always bothered me about our floor.  There are only four condos on our floor, which also houses the party room, and although you’d think most people would see “902″ and not think “party room,” we get a couple knocks on our door every month from people in search of the baby shower, anniversary, or birthday.

Over the course of the next half hour, all we heard was constant shouting from the hallway.  We often hear the odd voice from the hallway as guests in the party room get on and off the elevator, but this was different.  It was almost as if they were congregating in the hallway.

I went outside to check, and to my surprise, there were a dozen kids, all drinking booze in the hallway!  Tall-boys, king-cans, 40′s, and even a bottle of Red Label!

The kids saw me and scattered, so I returned to my unit just to digest what had happened.  I stood there confused for a little bit, and then finally turned around and went right back outside.  This time, however, I couldn’t help but notice something a bit……different.  There it was – right in front of me: a giant pile of puke.  On the carpet, right in front of the elevator, and ten feet from my door.

I did plan on having a few drinks on Friday night, so I was going to head back down to the parking garage to get some Gingerale out of my storage locker.  But upon the elevator door opening, I saw something even worse than the puke on the carpet in the hallway.  Try and picture this – the entire mirrored wall in the elevator was SPLATTERED with puke.  A giant projectile vomit covered the wall in a way that would make a professional painter proud.

I lost it.

I marched downstairs to find the concierge, but nobody was at the desk.

So I went back up to the 9th floor, used my FOB to access the party room, and went inside in search of answers.

Inside the party room I found two young girls – one sitting on the floor in the corner of the room hysterically crying, and another girl consoling her.  I immediately knew that this crying headcase had to be the ‘host,’ since most parties thrown by teenage girls end with the host crying on the floor.

I asked them, “Is this your party?”  The girl jumped up, red-faced, and said “Yes, Yes it’s my party.  I’m sorry!  I’m sorry, mister!”  Upon hearing “mister,” of course, I immediately turned around to see if there was a man standing behind me, but eventually I realized that she was talking to me.

Man, I’m old…

She was hysterical!  “I don’t care, I don’t care about anything!  I just wanna die!”

I said, “Well, you have a lot of options at your disposal, but let’s just figure out the situation at hand here…”

I asked her friend, “How old are you girls?”  She paused, and looked up, to the left, then down again.  I said, “I know you’re not 19, and I don’t care – just tell me: are you 15 or are you 16?”  She said, “We’re 16,” and I replied, “So then you’re really fifteen, aren’t you?”

They were fifteen.

My condo party room was invaded by twenty kids, all fifteen-years-old, drinking and smoking pot in the party room.

What an utter mess.

I tried to calm the girl down, and then I went out to the hallway to find a security guard, who looked equally as useless as he would prove to be in the end.  I told him, “You’d better go downstairs and make sure no more kids come up here tonight.”

My next-door neighbour came outside, and she was pissed.  She’s in her 60′s, and not nearly as patient as I was!

A few minutes later, the 15-year-old girl’s sister appeared with her boyfriend, and seeing as they were about 19-years-old, I was able to convey to them the gravity of the situation.  The floor and the elevator were covered in puke, the party room reeked like marijuana, there were empty bottles everywhere, and worst of all – we knew there was a ton of underage drinking going on.

Do I care about underage drinking?  Not really, no.  But in my condo, I do.  On my floor, in my home, I do.

I explained to the sister, “You have to make sure no more kids come here.  Promise me.”  She said, “Nobody else will, trust me.”

I said, “Come on – the way you kids are today, with your text messages and your Twitter – make sure the word gets out – no more kids!”

She assured me, nobody else would show.

As if on cue, about 1.8 seconds later, the elevator door went “DING,” and the door opened to reveal about 8-10 more kids, all looking like they were 14-16 years old, all holding bags of beer, liquor, and probably windshield washer fluid, for all I know.

They all stopped talking, and looked at me, then the girl, then me.  I said, “BYE!  BYE KIDS!  SEE YA LATER!  YOU KNOW HOW TO GET TO ‘G’ RIGHT?”  They split pretty quickly, which is how I know I look like an old dude to them.

I went downstairs to talk to the concierge and find out how all this happened, and I was utterly shocked by the results.

Wanting to know how the hell a 15-year-old girl was able to rent and gain access to the party room, he explained that she came downstairs on Thursday with $250 in cash and tried to book the party room “under her mom’s name.”  The concierge said that she needed to provide a cheque, and she promised to come back.

That was where his story ended.

I said to him, “Sooo….what happened during the 30-hour gap that you’re leaving unexplained?”

He just sat there with a blank look and offered little, if any explanation.  He said, “Well….I went on my dinner break….and….”

That was all I needed to hear.  He wanted to blame somebody else; anybody else, and nobody was going to accept responsibility for this.

I asked him, “Okay so let’s say this was somebody else’s fault, just for argument’s sake.  So let me ask you this: why didn’t you stop twenty 15-year-old kids from coming through the lobby tonight with open containers of beer?”

Again, the poor guy sat there with nothing to say.

I asked, “You have video cameras all over the building, right?  So why didn’t you do something when you saw kids smoking in the party room, puking in the elevators, and drinking in the hallways?”

Nothing.  No explanation.

I told the security guard to go put the elevator on service – an action which I thought was a foregone conclusion, and to my surprise, he said, “We can’t do that.  Not on a Friday night.”  I explained to him that the elevator was covered in puke, and that in the next three hours, likely forty or fifty residents were going to come home – home, to the place they live and love, and find a puke-filled elevator right before they retire for the night.  He eventually took my suggestion and put the elevator on service…

I returned upstairs to find the 15-year-old girl’s older sister, and her boyfriend, who had cleaned up the party room.

At likely 19-years-old, they were able to grasp the gravity of the situation, but that didn’t stop me from giving them about ten minutes of worldly advice.

I explained to the girl that her younger sister’s actions were going to cost a concierge and/or security guard his job.  I explained that in the real world, people have jobs, and they work at these jobs to make money to support their families, and pay their bills.  I explained to her that the actions of her stupid 15-year-old sister were going to severely alter the course of one or more person’s lives, and that this should be fully conveyed to the little brat.

The older sister was somewhat understanding, but I really don’t think any of those kids gives a good goddam today.

Even worse is that the parents probably chalked this up to “kids being kids,” and I’d be surprised if any discipline were handed down.

I’m going to stop short of ranting about “kids today” and the pathetic state of society’s youth, but I’m hoping that my words didn’t go unheard.  There was only one thing I tried to convey to the 15-year-old host before she ran away, and that was this: “What did you think was going to happen?”  I asked her repeatedly, and told her that no good was going to come of this night, and that it was always destined to end just like this.  There was no way that she was going to con her way into a party with her disrespectful, entitled, snotty friends, and that the event would go without incident.  This night would have ended this way, ten times out of ten.

I wrote a letter to property management and to the Board of Directors, making some suggestions for rule changes with respect to the party room.  I can’t belive that a security guard isn’t mandatory, no matter if there are 100 guests, or just one.

Time will tell whether or not things change, but the puke stain on the hall carpet remains.

Between my crazy neighbour three floors up, and this stupid 15-year-old girl and her friends, it certainly was an eventful weekend here in paradise…

But what do you do when you live in a condo and that neighbour is legally your partner in the condominium corporation?

I’ve had some very interesting condo neighbours over the years.

If you’ve been reading my blog for over a year now, then you likely read the story about the marijuana grow-op that was being run out of the condo next door to me in my old building.  That neighbour was always a bit strange, so it came as no surprise when the cops busted her one night for having 80+ plants growing in an elaborate and expensive setup in her 535 square feet.

On a long enough time horizon, you’re going to have some neighbours that you can’t stand.

Some neighbours are loud, some cook stinky foods, some throw cigarette butts down on your terrace, and some have visitors banging on their doors at 3am for some odd reason…

If you’ve never had a bad neighbour, then consider yourself lucky!  But also consider odds are – you’re going to get one soon!

My sister was telling me that across the hall from her is an Eastern European family with two teenage sons, and after the parents left (presumably on vacation), the kids have been throwing parties every single night.  She says “It’s like Jersey Shore moved in next door.”

What can she do?

The parents are away, and the way parents are today – they probably won’t discipline the kids when they get back.

These are the things we have to deal with when we live in condominiums and in very close proximity to one-another, and my honest-to-goodness advice is, “Just get used to it.”

But what do you do when your neighbour takes things to the next level?

I mean what do you do when your neighbour isn’t just being loud, but rather when your neighbour actually scares the crap out of you and questions your safety?

In my old building, my next-door-neighbour was the victim of an attempted break-in, and she awoke one night to find a man trying to squeeze his way through a small patio window.  We figured that he climbed up the tree that was off the back alleyway (we lived on the second floor), and so the obvious thing to do was have the tree removed by the city.

As obvious as the tree-removal solution was, to protect our safety, one person in our building didn’t like the solution.

My neighbour came home one day to find a threatening note that read, “How come you think you can remove that tree?  This isn’t over.  You’re going to get it.”

I might laugh that one off, but my neighbour was a young, single girl who was frightened for her safety.

I read the note and I figured that the person who wrote it was likely a crazy old woman.  Doesn’t that fit?  Do you think that a Ted Bundy-like serial killer is going to take issue with a tree being removed?  Probably not.  Forgive me for generalizing, but a 70-year-old woman who values the presence of a tree as much as she values kisses from her cat is the type of person who would make threats after this tree, which served as a ladder for break-ins, was removed.

My neighbour suspected the woman above her, but never did anything about it.

It wasn’t until the woman began dumping buckets of water on my neighbour’s head that she finally took issue!

Several times during the course of the summer, the old lady snuck out onto the balcony to pour a sizable amount of water down below on the people enjoying a night on the terrace.  My neighbour finally called the police, and after meeting with the old lady, they determined that she was crazy enough to warrant contacting her family, and suggesting a mental exam of some type.

I now find myself in the very same situation.

When I moved into my new condo, I had some work being done on my terrace.  I came home one day and found that the workers had left, and when I asked them why they stopped working, they said, “We’re not allowed to work on Saturday.”

I asked property management why they were told not to work on a Saturday, when there is nothing to indicate that in the rules, and property management said that not only is work permitted on Saturday, but also that they didn’t tell my workers to stop!

I went back to the workers for clarification, and they said, “Oh yeah, it was the woman three floors above you that stopped us.  She said we weren’t allowed to be there.”

After the weekend I just had, and after my interactions with this lady, the “we weren’t allowed to be there” excuse that my workers gave me, makes perfect sense, since she told me that I wasn’t allowed to be there either…

I was out on my terrace on Saturday afternoon, planting some flowers, and listening to music, and somebody above me shouted, “F*** YOU!  F*** YOU!  TURN THAT MUSIC OFF!”

I figured there was probably a better way of asking, and I was surprised that somebody felt the need to curse at one-hundred decibels, but not everybody is polite as we’d like them to be!

My music wasn’t on that loud, and given that there were several people out on their balconies, from what I could tell, that were BBQ’ing and listening to music, I wondered why I was being targeted.

I carried on my way, and again somebody yelled, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT!  TURN IT OFF!”

I looked up, and I saw a woman in her late-60′s, with long silver hair, leaning over the balcony, pacing back and forth.

She shouted, “YOU CAN’T BE HERE!  YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE THERE!  YOU HAVE TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW!”

That’s when I realized: she’s crazy.

She has no idea what world she’s in.  She’s not a normal person asking me to turn off my music, she’s a nut who believes that I’m not allowed to be there.

“YOU CAN’T BE THERE!” She shouted again.  “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!”

I believe the medical term is “bat-shit crazy.”

She wasn’t making any sense at all.  I have no idea what was going on in her mind, but perhaps she believes she’s the sole occupant in this building and that this whole place belongs to her.  Perhaps she believes I’m an intruder.  Maybe I’m an alien.

She continued shouting “YOU HAVE TO LEAVE!  YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE.”

I finally shot back, “Please go away.  I’m okay, I’m fine.  Please go away.”

And that’s when things got a little weird.

She yelled, “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU.”

Wow.  Intense!  She was already killing the fashion world with her pants hiked up to her ribcage, and her silver hair blowing in the wind.  But kill me?  Really?

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU I’M GOING TO KILL YOU I’M GOING TO KILL YOU,” she yelled, over and over and over.

And then she got really specific, “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU….TONIGHT!”

Wow.  Now she was actually laying out a schedule of events for my impending demise.

Not  only was she planning on killing me, and not only was she comfortable telling me this, but she also had the day and time planned!

She finally went away, and although I didn’t really care that much about what she said, it kind of stuck with me.

My fiancée got home and I told her, “The old lady three floors above us is going to kill me tonight.”  My fiancée responded, “Well I was pretty close to smothering you with a pillow as you slept last night, so it just goes to show you – people sometimes change their minds.”

I love this woman.  She has such a great sense of humour!

But part of me wondered what I might come to expect from this nutcase who I’ll be in close proximity to in the forseeable future.  Oh – sorry, I meant the old lady, not my fiancee….I just wanted to clarify that.

Can I expect buckets of water to be dumped on my head?

Is she going to call the police the next time I have the audacity to stand out on my own terrace?

The woman clearly has mental issues, and I’m hoping it doesn’t escalate from here.  Just before I moved out of my old building, my neighbour was telling me that she and property management were trying to have the woman who lived above her “removed” from the building.  I can honestly say that I don’t know how one goes about “removing” a crazy person, but surely when things escalate to a no-turning-back level, you have to take drastic measures.

In the end, I survived the night, and I didn’t suffer any bodily-harm at the hands of the silver-haired would-be murderer.

Just remember that whether you buy a house or a condo – there are going to be interactions with the people that live near you.  In a condo, you’re partners with them, like it or not, and you all live by the same rules and regulations.  With a house, you can always big a bigger, taller fence, but short of moving to a different area, you’re often stuck with your problems.

If you find yourself having issues with neighbours in your condo, the first step is a note to the property manager, and then to the Board of Directors.  It’s kept anonymous, and remember that these people are here to help you, not to control you.

If all else fails, you might have to call the police.  Trust me – it happens a LOT more than you think…

You guys read the article, and be the judge…

“TORONTO HOME SELLERS FEEL THE NEED TO CASH IN”
By: Carolyn Ireland
Friday, May 4th, 2012
The Globe & Mail

Say you’d been searching for a condo to buy and handed over an offer on a cool place in the Queen Street West area, only to find out that the owner rejected not just your offer but every one of the 15 others. You’d feel irked, right? And just imagine how burned you would feel if the same seller came back to the market for another round – at a higher price.

David Fleming understands the outrage.

The agent at Bosley Real Estate Ltd. has seen this scenario play out more often than usual 2012’s exceptionally hot spring market in Toronto: Sellers angle for a bidding war; if competition doesn’t materialize or the bids aren’t rich enough, they wait a short interval then raise the asking price.

“Expectations are crazy right now,” he says.

Mr. Fleming – who draws readers who like his outspoken style at www.torontorealtyblog.com – closely followed one such case which played out recently as the market was heading towards the peak of the spring frenzy.

The action unfolded after a condo unit with one bedroom and a den had languished on the market for seven weeks with an asking price of just under $360,000. The building had been recently registered which meant that owners were entitled to put their units up for sale and dozens of them did so over the course of a few months.

So, in order to make this one unit stand out from the competition, Mr. Fleming reckons, the seller and his or her agent tried a new tactic.

They brought out the listing again at the eye-popping asking price of $159,900. They set a date and time when all offers would be reviewed and waited for the fracas to ensue.

Mr. Fleming ranted (his word) about the outcome on his blog: After all 16 parties put their bids on the table, not one had upped the ante sufficiently to satisfy the seller.

A few weeks passed and the unit was listed once again – at a little less than $359,000 this time. It’s not hard to imagine that the seller was hoping for this amount all along and the ridiculously-low asking price was just bait.

“All they did was waste the time of not just the 16 buyers, but also the agents, lawyers, parents, mortgage brokers and everyone else involved.”

Then there are the frazzled nerves that buyers suffer in such skirmishes.

Many of those bidders probably offered huge amounts over the asking price, he says, and they would undoubtedly feel deceived.

Mr. Fleming stresses that the seller and agent did nothing illegal or even against industry rules. But he does think their actions were misleading. He rails against game-playing because he says it tarnishes the reputation of the industry.

“It’s very frustrating for everyone involved,” he says. “It makes people not want to work with that agent. It makes people not want to look at the house.”

The seller’s agent, he adds, should not try to appeal to a client’s greed. Some people are cashing out after living in a place a long time but others only bought a couple of years ago. Everyone seems to expect a big gain, says Mr. Fleming.

“I think it really falls back on the listing agent to educate their sellers and not promise them multiples. The sellers’ expectations are so high and emotion pays a huge part in real estate.”

But perhaps prospective buyers bear some responsibility: they can walk away and refuse to participate in a melée.

“You really, really have to consider, do you want to get involved,” Mr. Fleming agrees. “When you know a game is being played, I would advise my clients to sit it out.”

Mr. Fleming says the rising number of listings at this time of year compared with the shortage in February means competition is less intense. Multiple offers are still common for good properties in favoured neighbourhoods, he adds, but the battles that draw 13 or 15 buyers have simmered down.

Many agents are reporting that they’ve seen offer dates pass without a deal. That’s when a strategy designed to draw multiple offers can backfire.

When that happens, it’s not uncommon to see the same house come back on at a higher price.

“If your house didn’t sell at $999,000, why would you put it back on for $1.1-million? The market has spoken.”

The sellers will often try to justify the higher asking price by pointing out improvements they’ve made, such as redoing the kitchen.

“And even that was probably 10 years ago,” says Mr. Fleming. “No one cares about your 10-year-old kitchen.”

In other cases, a house doesn’t sell at the deadline and a prospective buyer will make an offer later for the asking price or thereabouts only to have the seller come back with a higher number.

“When they sign back higher than the asking price – what are they thinking? That was three weeks ago.”

Sooooo……is there anything new in here?

Isn’t this just the same stuff I’ve been saying for years and years?

Didn’t I already write about that condo on Queen Street that received 16 offers, all of which were rejected?

I don’t really understand the concept of the “whistle-blower” as it’s meant.  There’s a negative connotation with this term, but it’s always a good thing, isn’t it?  An employee of a tobacco company, or an oil company, or some sort of other symbolically evil conglomerate finally has ‘enough’ and discloses the illegal/unethical/immoral/wrong/bad/hurtful practices that go on in his or her industry?  Isn’t that what we’re talking about here?

Is there BAD whistle-blowing?

Two weeks ago, I was having a rather typical wild, crazy, Saturday night, and was browsing MLS while drinking red wine…

I found a listing on King Street East for a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom that was actually a 1-plus-den, and in the secret REMARKS FOR BROKERAGES, it read, “Second bedroom is actually a den but could be used as a second bedroom.”

I snapped.

Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was just me, but I emailed the listing agent and said something like, “How can you list this one-plus-den as a 2-bedroom when you know it’s not a 2-bedroom?  you’re just duping consumers because you know you can.  You have no morals, whatsoever.  You are exactly what I despise about this industry.  Oh, wait, you work for (censored) brokerage, and out of Markham.  Quelle surprise!”

Yeah, I threw his brokerage in there too.  But it’s beyond coincidence that most of these people are cut from the same cloth.

I “dissed” him to TREB, but it doesn’t matter.  They get thousands of those (DIS stands for Data Integrity Service), and there’s too many to look after.

I just can’t believe some of the things that people get away with, and yes – I write about them.  I talk about them, and I complain about them.

“Whistle Blower?”  Whatever.

A colleague of mine always jokes with me, “Fleming – you’re cleaning up the industry, one day at a time, are you?”  Laugh all you want, but what if we all sat back and did nothing?

I’m glad that Carolyn Ireland wrote that article in The Globe & Mail.  It’s drawing attention to unfair business practices, even if it’s in the industry in which I work.

Wouldn’t anybody want to work in a cleaner industry?

Do you think the clean baseball players don’t want the guys on steroids to get caught?

If you’ve ever wondered how “Yonge Street” got its name, read on, my friend…

Have you ever run into a tourist that asks you how to get to “Yong” street?

They pronounce it “yong,” because there is no “u” in the word, like “young.”

We take it for granted, of course.  We’ve been living here all our lives, and we think the mispronunciation of the word is normal.

Or what about “Spadeeena?”

How come we put a “g” into “Eglinton,” and pronounce it “Egglington?”

Believe it or not, many of these streets are named after actual people, some of importance, some not.

You’d have to believe that Yonge Street, the most famous street in all of Canada, is named after a person.  You’d have to believe that this person, man or woman, must be of extreme significance as far as Canadian history goes!

Well, believe it, folks!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet, Sir George Yonge:

A strapping young lad, wouldn’t you say?  Devilishly handsome, and gentle enough to handle a new-born baby!

George Yonge was a British Secretary at War, if you couldn’t guess he was somehow involved in combat, from his fancy gettup in that photo.

He looks a tad like George Washington, although it seems like all old, dead, men from the 1700′s had grey side-mullets and a nasty scowl…

Born in Colyton, England in 1731, I honestly don’t know if Sir George Yonge ever set foot on Canadian soil.  I’ve been researching this for days, and it looks as if all of his appointments and positions were held in England.

Nevertheless, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, named “Yonge Street” after his good pal, Sir George Yonge, in 1793.

The original Yonge Street was constructed from Eglinton Avenue, and ran north to Lake Simcoe.

What about Bloor Street?

Surely there is a man or woman behind the second-most-famous street in Toronto, no?

Once again folks, allow me to introduce you to, Joseph Bloore:

His Honourable Joseph Bloore was a reclusive poet who lived in the mid 1700′s in a small Dodge Caravan down by the river.

Bloore collected cookies that were shaped like planets, and primarily spent his time making snow-angels, and searching for four-leaf clovers.

In 1781, after a small squirrel knocked on his door and asked him to subscribe to the Toronto Star, Bloore went on a rampage and dialed the phone number of every single Torontonian (that was about eight people at the time) and asked them, “Is your refridgerator running?  Really?  Well you’d better go out and chase after it!”

It was at that time that Bloore was committed to a mental hospital, and the above photo was taken….

…..yeah.

Alright, well, none of that is true, but it may as well be.

LOOK at that photo!

Have you ever seen such a crazy person in your life?  This guy looks absolutely insane!

And what’s with that thick bow-tie?

Seriously, if you saw a man like that on the street, and he gave you THAT look, you’d probably run away as fast as you could.

Joseph Bloore, in actual fact, was an inkeeper from Shaffordshire, England, who came to Canada in 1819.

He had a hotel on King Street, and eventually opened a brewery in an area that he founded as “The Village of Yorkville.”  Oh, if only he knew that it would one day become the most expensive area in the city of Toronto…

Bloor Street itself was actually known as “Concession Two” (Concession One was Queen Street) up until 1855 when it was renamed after him, although for some reason, the “e” was left off.  Perhaps it was an honest mistake, or perhaps half the country couldn’t read or write back then…

Lastly, let’s take a look at Jarvis Street in Toronto, and how that street was named.

When you think of the most famous family in the history of Toronto, I certainly hope you don’t think of some Canadian version of the Trumps, Hiltons, or whatever other stupid reality-tv-driven families are making headlines just because Twitter and YouTube make every single person’s broken-heel of note.

I think that the Jarvis family is the most famous, and one of the most important, families in the history of our city and perhaps Canada as well.

Here is William Botsford Jarvis and his family:

I’m not sure why Mr. Jarivs is holding a pool cue, or a giant stick, but I can only assume that he knows what he is doing.

I also have to remark that in 2012, it would be absolutely, positively, impossible to get your two teenage daughters to sit that still for a photo, without texting their friends “omg u wld nt blv wht im doing. c u 2nite.”   Oh, if only the world today was what it was 200 years ago when it took two hours to get dressed in six layers of clothing for no apparent reason…

Born in 1799 (also known as the last year the Leafs won the Stanley Cup), Jarvis’ namesake gave us not only Jarvis Street, but also the area of Rosedale.  His residence was named “Rosedale House,” and the area eventually took on that name.

But Jarvis’ most important contribution to Toronto (back then it was York, Upper Canada) was as the sheriff of the “Home District,” which comprised much of what we know as Ontario & Quebec today.  He held the job from 1827 to 1856, and battled the infamous William Lyon Mackenzie (who we all learned about in grade eight history – thanks Mrs. Withers!) in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.  Man, it’s like a flashback to 1992 in my brain!  What’s next – are we going to learn about the Family Compact?

I must say here that in my research I’ve seen conflicting reports; some say that Jarvis Street was named for William Botsford Jarvis, who is likely the most influential of the Jarvis clan, and some say it was named for his cousin, Samuel:

Hey, anybody that kills somebody in a good old-fashioned duel deserves to have a street named after them!

The ideas get crazier and crazier.  Reducing speeds on the roads to 20 km per hour?  Well, if the moon was made of cheese, would you take a bite?

Oh, sorry, maybe that last joke went over some people’s heads.

Will Ferrell used to do a great impersonation of legendary baseball commentator, Harry Caray, and he’d ask ridiculous, non-sensical questions like, “If the moon was made of cheese, would you take a bite?”

When I saw the suggestion that speeds on some of Toronto’s streets should be reduced to 20 km per hour, I immediately thought of Harry Caray.

Then I thought of the Seinfeld episode where Lloyd Braun suggests “Everybody in New York City should wear a name tag!”

It conjured up images of “Every child in the world holding hands, and singing.”

It was the stupidest idea I’ve heard as far as I’ve been following municipal politics, and there have been some pretty stupid ideas!

Never before in our city has the LEFT been fighting the RIGHT so hard, and vice versa.

But we’re at the point now where the two sides are spiting eachother simply for the sake of spite itself, and standing in the way of progress.

Rob Ford, like him or not, is in charge of running this city.  But the left aren’t giving him an inch of leeway, and they’re jumping on every single thing he does or says, without even having time to think about whether they agree.

I’m of the opinion that if David Miller were to have made certain proposals that Rob Ford brought forth, the left would have remained quiet.

People are looking beyond Rob Ford, the politician, and are looking at Rob Ford, the man.  People are taking issue with his weight, his appearance, his voice, and his demeanor.  Anti-Ford lobbyists are looking at anything they can, but it’s not getting us anywhere!

I’m a huge follower of politics; municipal, provincial, federal, and my favorite – international.

I often muse that the discrepancy between the rich and poor (or right and left) in the United States is unparalleled, and that country is about to make a decision on their future that will affect the world as we know it for generations to come.  But when I look in my own backyard here in Toronto, I see some of the same things.

When was the last time we saw such a fight between the left and right?

Every issue in our city comes down to this – poltical-left versus political-right.

Certain things have become symbols of left and right!

Car = right, Bicycle = left

Subway = right, LRT = left

Is there any middle-ground left at all?

And is there any hope of ever reconciling?

This left-verus-right fight stalemate reminds me, yet again, of American politics, where the house spites the senate, the senate blocks the house, the house begets the senate, and the senate disses the house.  One political group controls the house, the other the senate, and all they do is block each other’s moves.  Nothing ever gets done, and all they do is talk about the next election, as if that’s been the end game all along.

This recent nonsense about reducing speed limits by 20 km per hour (in some areas, that would mean limits would be 20 km per hour), is the latest example of the left-versus-right and the ridiculousness that comes out of the fight.

It’s nothing short of radical, and radicalism is not present when a healthy, functioning government is in place.

I have to ask – is this really a good, honest, suggestion?  Did the person who ordered this study really think this was something realistic?  Or is this just more fuel on the fire at City Hall?  Is this just more anti-Ford propaganda?

I know people don’t like Rob Ford, I understand.  His response, when asked about the possibility of speed limits being reduced to 20 km per hour, was that the idea was “Nuts, Nuts, Nuts.  NO!”

A more likeable politician might have responded, “We’re always interested in exploring ways to protect our residents – all residents, and this is something my staff and I will take under advisement.  But at first glance, it does seem pretty drastic, doesn’t it?  Nevertheless, we’ll have a look.”

Isn’t that better?

Would people be happier if Rob Ford was nicer….or less rude/annoying/fat?  Isn’t that what this is about – his personality?

If David Miller said, “Nuts, Nuts, Nuts,” would people attack him too?

If Rob Ford was 180 pounds, spoke quietly, and went out of his way to be polite, would his policies be met with such opposition?

Rob Ford wanted to “eliminate waste” at City Hall, but the issue isn’t the lack of waste – it’s the fact that people can’t agree what waste is!  Take today’s report about the lack of funding to fight bed bugs.  (Read the comments!)

It revealed that $5,000,000 “helps” 200 people.  Really?  Isn’t that a little wasteful?  $25,000 per person?  I’d LOVE to see how that money was spent!  But how long until the political-left are complaining that the city isn’t doing enough to help fight the good fight?

I feel as though many people thought Rob Ford would find a line item in the budget that was $200 Million for candy-apples, he’d wave his magic wand, and the “waste” would be gone.  But the true “waste,” for the political-right, is spending $5 Million to help 200 people with bed bugs, while for the political-left, it’s a tax rebate to a small business.

Neither the left, nor the right, is blameless in this laborious trench warfare at City Hall.

And before you accuse me of being biased and taking sides, have a look at this ridiculous right-wing email I received today:

Time we fight back against LRTs – with a traffic slowdown on Eglinton Avenue May 3

If Karen Stintz, Josh Matlow, and Metrolinx don’t understand the kind of traffic jam they are going to create for us the next ten years, we have to show them.

Let us organize a traffic slowdown on Eglinton Avenue East during rush hour. Starting at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday May 3, we have columns of cars and large trucks going west on Eglinton Avenue from Don Mills Road at about 20 kilometers an hour side by side. And when the light turns green at the next intersection, we count to 15 before moving to allow pedestrians to cross safely to the other side. This fits right in with Toronto’s medical officer of health’s new safety plan to reduce the speed limit. We should help all we can to reduce traffic accidents. 20 kilometers and hour is almost as good as staying home in bed. The column of cars and trucks will proceed this way all the way to Keele Street where they will turn around (slowly and carefully) and proceed east back to Don Mills Road and will repeat this process until 11:00 a.m. Let us hope and pray that not too many of these vehicles will break down along their route.

At the other end of Eglinton Avenue West, at Keele Street, the other half of the group of concerned businessmen (the ones living west of Yonge St), will approach Yonge Street with their cars and large trucks in the same fashion and proceed all the way to Don Mills Road where they will turn around (slowly and carefully) and repeat the process by proceeding west back to Keele Street until 11:00 a.m.

The beauty of this plan is that it will give backstabber Karen Stintz and Josh the newshound Matlow a chance to experience a real St. Clair type of a disaster. And we will continue to repeat this traffic slowdown every couple of weeks until someone wakes up and notices us.

Metrolinx calls the LRT a transit solution! They’ve got to be kidding! It’s a traffic nightmare of St. Clair proportions and we must stop them. How could a Provincial agency ignore all the traffic experts and their own extensive previous studies to unanimously endorse a plan that would have been appropriate in the 19th Century? And let us organize the next Provincial election starting right now!

And now: More reasons why we must fight: Here is an e-mail I received from a former school trustee who has to work with Josh Matlow, who is now proposing a motion on May 8 to the city Council for more subways for downtown, but the same guy who orchestrated to screw us with a streetcar LRT on Sheppard  and Finch Avenues, (and soon everywhere else): “I worked with Josh Matlow before @ the TDSB; he is an interesting guy…more interested to be “seen and heard” in the media than doing the right thing!  His newly rebuild school, North Toronto CI, is poorly managed and the TDSB lost a lot of $$$ + land to the developer.  When Josh was at the TDSB, there were very few trustees who would work with Josh; he was also sanctioned by the trustees for breaching confidential files; hence, few of us talk or send him files to discuss or review.

I am not surprised by anything Josh Matlow does as he is interested in getting his “name” out there!” So let us all go out there to slow traffic in Matlow and Stintz’s wards on May 3 real early in rush hour when it hurts the most. Get all your friends involved.

Karl Haab

This contradicts the very first rule that all of us leaned in Kindergarten: two wrongs don’t make a right.

This is just more radicalism, except it’s coming from the right and not the left (for a change – sorry, there is my bias showing…).

How is an organized traffic protest going to help things?

Look, I don’t agree with the political-left, and I never will.

The traffic study from Dr. David McKeown was absolutely pathetic, and the highlight had to be when he suggested “special lanes that would allow cyclists to turn in front of traffic.”

Oh yeah – that’s a great idea!

Having cyclists turn in front of traffic?  THAT will surely produce fewer accidents!

That’s like allowing cute bunny-rabits to cover themselves in honey and walk in front of hungry wolves…

But do I think a planned traffic-slowing tactic is the answer?  No, I don’t.

Nor do I agree with the political mud-slinging above that calls Mr. Matlow’s integrity into question, via anonymous hearsay that could likely never be verified.  If the political-left take issue with these comments about Mr. Matlow, then they should consider that maybe, just maybe, Rob Ford being fat doesn’t affect his ability to oversee the City of Toronto.

Last week, we saw the provincial government make progress when Dalton McGuinty adopted the NDP’s “tax the rich” policy so that the rest of his own policies would be passed.

Can’t we see the same thing at the municipal level?

Or is all hope lost?