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Clean-up in the 244 garbage room (Aug. 24, 2025)

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This problem seems to have begun when the garbage contractor pushed the left dumpster back into the garbage room with the lids down. The ceiling of the garbage room is too low to allow the lids to be completely folded back, as should have been (and is normally) done.

The lids were propped open with rods, but this only gives limited clearance. This led to several issues:

  • Someone apparently failed to get their garbage into the dumpster, spilling its contents, including a large amount of packing peanuts, onto the floor. Whoever did this simply left the mess.
  • With the left dumpster difficult to use, people kept throwing garbage into the right dumpster until it was overflowing.

I used a combo of dustbin, picker, broom and work gloves to:

  • Sweep up and dispose of all the garbage on the floor.
  • Redistribute a lot of garbage from the right dumpster to the left one, until the right one was full, but not overflowing. I will monitor the right dumpster, as I suspect people will overfill it again.

I am not on council, but in my opinion, the following needs to happen:

  • The garbage contractor needs to be notified that a dumpster was brought in with the lids down, and this must not happen (it’s possible this was done by someone new or unfamiliar with our garbage room).
  • Owners and tenants need to be reminded to not overfill dumpsters.
Before the clean-up.
After the clean-up.
The right dumpster, after transferring a bunch of its garbage to the left dumpster. Still full, but not overflowing.
Piping and a low ceiling prevent the lids from being folded back once the dumpster is inside the garbage room.

So, how was your Sunday? 😛

No Caller ID issue with enterphone (and possible workaround)

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UPDATE August 13, 2025: I'm not sure what is going on with the system now. It is clearly broken and not working properly. The workaround below is not working any longer for me.
UPDATE: Verified that the workaround worked for me. I am trying to verify if it has worked for anyone else.

The enterphone/intercom is experiencing an issue now where owners and tenants answering a buzzer are getting a “No Caller ID” message on their phones and are unable to buzz people in.

While this is being investigated, a workaround that fixed the issue for me was to add the enterphone phone number as a contact on my phone (I have an iPhone). I haven’t confirmed if the same number is used for every building, but for 244 the following number works: 778-397-0265

I’ll update this post if I confirm it also works for buildings 240 and 248.

The unexpectedly long cigarette butt patrol

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I noticed a collection of cigarette butts had once again accumulated on the drain at the top of the stairs leading to Allen Street, so I got the picker and dustbin and headed out for a quick clean-up.

While out, I noticed the landscaping company had cut down the wild grass growing along the property on Brunette Avenue. We’d done a pretty thorough clean-up of this area during the May 10 community cleanup, but I figured the cut grass would reveal more “treasures”, so I headed over to have a look.

I was right! Among the cigarette butts, I found:

  • Paper and plastic cups (someone really liked Super Slurpees)
  • An old sign
  • Glass and plastic bottles
  • Wrappers of all sorts
  • Cardboard
  • Creamers. Apparently someone stood in the shade of one of the trees and drank coffee with a lot of cream in it.
  • Styrofoam food containers
  • An empty asparagus (!) box
  • And, as they say, so much more

There was so much stuff I filled the dust bin twice, then upgraded to a crate and filled it up, too. There are probably more bits of stuff stuck in the piles of cut grass now, but definitely less than before.

Photos:

Dust bin #1. This is when I figured it might take more than a few minutes.
Dust bin #2.
The crate.

Cleaning up the stairs (possibly for the first time!)

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Now that the path along the hospital lane is open again, Jeff thought it was a good time to take some brooms and a hose to the concrete stairs that connect from the path down to Copperstone.

It took quite a bit of work to clear off the years of accumulated dirt, twigs and other junk, but now the stairs are clean, and our plan is to keep them that way going forward.

Here’s a small gallery showing the results, with the first shot being before the big hose-down began.

Website update, April 7, 2025

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A lot of the information in the right sidebar has been archived, as it is no longer relevant. I will likely make it available in the future in a way that puts it into historical context. As always, I will update and correct any errors or gaps in the information, even if it’s “old news.”

Further updates to the site are coming soon!