When Adam Halim recently returned from his honeymoon, his car was gone. It took him hours of phone conversations and lots of sleuthing to figure out what happened and why he had to pay the city nearly $1,000.

The answer, to his surprise, had to do with overgrown trees and three parking violations he had nothing to do with.

On April 26, fresh off a three-week trip traipsing around Europe with his new wife, Halim came home to discover his company car wasn’t parked where he left it outside his house on Dovercourt Rd.

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He called the police’s parking enforcement unit, who told him his car was impounded and in a lot more than 7 kilometres away.

It didn’t add up. He had a valid street parking permit and could swear he left his Chevrolet Impala near home. Then another surprise at the impound lot — a bill for $734.50 and three $40 parking tickets on his windshield.

He paid the bill and drove home. But he needed to figure out what happened.

Then he asked his neighbours if they knew anything. One said he saw city workers cutting trees along his street. But that doesn’t make sense, he thought.

So he filed a complaint. After several days without response, he sent another email. Still nothing.

A week later, with the mystery of his car’s towing gnawing away, he took out the parking tickets, which he hadn’t examined closely.

All three showed he parked in a no-parking zone in front of 55 Lisgar St.

“Did I park my car one street over?” he thought. “Am I going crazy?”

He was sure he parked the car in his spot outside of his home.

Then he remembered he had a camera on his dashboard — or dash cam — which he checked. He said he owns a dash camera because “Toronto is kinda nuts driving with the pedestrians, cyclists, and transit . . . plus my car was broken into twice.”

He remembered unplugging the camera before he left so it didn’t drain the car’s battery. The last footage showed he had, in fact, parked in front of his house — just as he remembered.

But how did it end up on Lisgar St.? And why was the first ticket dated more than a week after he left for Europe?

He called parking enforcement again and pleaded with an officer to look deeper.

It turns out the city was cutting trees and needed to move Halim’s car, according to an email to Halim from parking enforcement. Parking enforcement explained to Halim that it had moved the vehicle one street over, but dropped it in a no-parking zone. Then three tickets stuffed under the wipers over five days was followed by a one-way trip to the impound lot.

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On May 10, Halim received a final email, a mea culpa, from parking enforcement.

“The officers involved will be reminded to be more diligent when relocating vehicles,” a tow complaint enforcer wrote. “My job is (to) review the occurrence, and in your case, make sure you’re reimbursed for the towing and storages cost, as well as all the tickets are cancelled.”

Kimberly Rossi, manager of the parking enforcement unit, said they need time to further investigate before commenting.

Halim said he is still waiting to be repaid, but he’s not worried about the money.

“It was one small mistake by one person and it snowballed into this disaster,” he said. “But what would someone without time and money do? The whole process has to be fixed. This is crazy.”