A Sydney man with terminal lung cancer says the living conditions in his apartment building are so bad they’re making his condition even worse.
Peter Poirier says the building is full of mold and poorly ventilated, which is aggravating his lungs.
Now he’s pleading with the Cape Breton Regional Housing Authority to find him a new smoke-free home, before it’s too late.
“It’s going to make me worse, sure,” says Poirier.
“He’s there fighting for his life, fighting for me, and what do we get? A hard time. They don’t care about us,” says his wife, Annette Poirier.
The 71-year-old retired carpenter says there was so much dust and cigarette smoke filling his apartment that it was affecting his breathing, so he covered the ventilation system with duct tape.
“It’s not as bad as it was because I did that,” says Poirier. “I knew it had to be coming from somewhere because every day we’ve been dusting that TV screen. Now we can dust it once a week.”
The building is owned by the province and managed by Cape Breton Island Housing, who says the Poiriers have been approved on a priority basis for a non-smoking building. That means the couple will move ahead of the regular selection process, but there is no timeline on when that move will take place.
“It’s really impossible to tell because we don’t have a suitable vacancy today,” says housing director Joan McKeough. “It would mean that someone needs to move from a unit to create a vacancy that would be appropriate.”
Poirier says he was told he was now fourth on the waiting list, which his wife says isn’t good enough.
“There shouldn’t be no question at all. The man is dying. The man is sick,” she says. “Give him a place so he can die in peace, not in here. That’s not fair. They don’t care. It’s who you are and I don’t care if they know.”
If they don’t move soon, Poirier worries he will die in his current apartment and his wife will be stuck there before the department takes action.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore
