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The borough of Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is promising to prosecute landlords who subdivide apartments into numerous units to maximize profits after a building fire over the weekend shed light on the practice.

Twenty-one residents were forced to flee their residences Sunday morning when a fire broke out in the third-storey of a complex of tightly spaced apartment units on Linton Ave. in Côte-des-Neiges. Residents reported groping their way down smoke-filled staircases, and said no central alarm system went off. One tenant had to seek refuge on the balcony and waited for rescue from firefighters with a ladder. In all, 18 units were evacuated. No one was injured. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but firefighters said they believed it was accidental.

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Once on the scene, CDN-NDG mayor Sue Montgomery said she and firefighters discovered at least four two-bedroom units in one apartment block with a total of six units had been subdivided into four separate rooms. The living rooms were divided into two rooms with a wall in the middle. Tenants told the mayor the landlord was charging them $400 to $500 a month each to stay in a room, and share the kitchen and bathroom. Because the living room was converted into bedrooms, there was no communal living space. The two-bedroom apartments normally rent for about $750 each.