The Salvation Army shelter’s shower has been broken for a month.
Shelter clients have been gripping about the closure, but it was a crisis five years in the making, said Judy Lightening, the shelter manager.
The shower was built without a lip to make it wheelchair accessible.
“It was ridiculous in the first place,” said Lightening.
“It was just a bad design.”
The water got under the shower and saturated the particleboard beneath.
Then it began busting the tiles.
Finally, the water reached the electrical fittings in the basement.
The shelter shut it down a month ago.
But finding a contractor has been hellish.
“It’s such a little job, nobody wants to do it,” said Lightening.
The first contractor became sick right before he was going to do the project.
A second contractor didn’t have a GST number and wanted to do it under the table.
“But we can’t do that,” she said.
On Thursday, the shelter found a contractor, she said.
The floor has to be ripped out and replaced.
New tiles and a lip have to put in.
Lightening is hoping the shower will reopen next week.
“They have to be patient,” she said.
“We’ve got clients who pee and poop themselves and maybe it was good it was closed because we haven’t had that problem the last little while.”