The owner of a hysterical and violent apartment building allegedly threatened one of her tenants with a hammer in connection with a simple story of work to be carried out in the apartment.
In a video dating from the end of May obtained by TVA Nouvelles, we can see Ginette Di Quinzio violently hitting, with a hammer, the floor and walls of her own building located on Plaza Avenue, in the Montreal-North borough .
That day, the tenant, Mélanie Lafontaine, was in her third floor apartment with her two young children aged two and four.
She says she was very scared.
“I was scared because my children were next to me, first of all, and you never know, with a person like that, what could happen,” the mother confided to TVA Nouvelles.
The latter rushed to contact the police who, she said, arrested the owner who lives in an apartment on the second floor.
According to Ms. Lafontaine, an argument over water damage in her home is one of the factors attributable to the owner’s excessive anger and alleged threats.
Ginette Di Quinzio allegedly asked the tenant to leave the apartment with her family during the work, but Ms. Lafontaine wanted the owner to pay for the move and temporary relocation, which she refused to do.
This owner would not be at her first abusive actions, according to the tenant who says she has already received knife threats when paying rent.
“It happened once, I went to pay for my accommodation, and she was waiting for me with a knife. She opened the door with a knife in her hands. She shouted to me: “ah, it’s $1800”, and she closed the door, but my rent doesn’t cost that. So I told her that she didn’t have the right,” says the tenant.
Ms. Lafontaine maintains that the owner also cut off her electricity by closing the circuit breaker on the electrical panel when it was -10 degrees Celsius.
The tenant claims that several anonymous death threat letters were sent to her.
Mélanie Lafontaine, who has lived in this building for four years, says she has a formal lease and maintains that she is never late with her rent payments to the owner.
The last payment was made by bank transfer to avoid any contact with the owner.
