Sad story from this morning about a resident who died after he was kicked out of his coop unit for non-payment.
The man refused to leave when the bailiff showed up at his unit at 12350 Lapierre in the city's north end at 9 a.m.
Instead the man barricaded himself inside.
Neighbours were evacuated.
He was soon after found dead inside the unit.
The identity of the person was not disclosed but it might have been William Zanetti, the only person to be ordered out of that building in recent months.
Zanetti had failed to pay his rent since December, which was just $250 per month. Zanetti only had a Sept 2012-July 2013 lease.
But Zanetti also had a case before the board at the same building in 2005. The details of that case are unclear as the Rental Board records only went only online after 2009, but it's clear he was not new to the building.
It's not the first time someone has barricaded themselves inside at the moment of their expulsion.
Here are some other local eviction standoffs.
-Victor Rayca, a Pole who had been interned by Russians in WWII, failed to pay a $300 court decision after his dog bit a neighbour. His $23,000 south shore home went up for auction and someone bought it for $5,000 in 1985. He threatened to kill himself rather than let the bailiff take it over. Random Montreal media consumers, moved by his story, chipped in $17,000 to help him buy it back at the last minute.
-A renegade priest barricaded himself into a church in St. Michel in 1975 after being dismissed for failing to preach the proper Catholic doctrine.
- Elderly hippie Bert Rakovski, 66, also threatened crazy violence upon his expulsion from his Baie d'Urfe home in 1971 but that ended up peacefully.