From the outside, the suburban home looks like any other on the Scarborough street.

But inside, 11 people lived crammed together paying $500 to $700 per month each for spaces created by subdividing rooms at 1280 Military Trail.

According to Municipal Licensing and Standards (MLS) inspectors, there were three bedrooms in the basement, four on the main floor and five on the upper level. There were two kitchens and six washrooms in the roughly 3,000-sq. ft. home. Smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors had been removed, and there were several fridges in the kitchens. The living room was divided into two rooms, but a partition wall was removed shortly before the search, inspectors say.

The alterations to the home were conducted without a building permit or other regulatory inspections, say inspectors who entered the home last week after complaints from neighbours.

Inside, inspectors found a sign warning tenants that “if the city of Toronto people get in they will vacate the house.’’

The owners are now facing charges for allegedly running an illegal rooming house.

The house sits across the street from U of T, and close to Centennial College’s Morningside Ave. campus. Officials believe it was home to foreign students.

Bill Blakes, a manager with MLS’s Scarborough district, says while his department doesn’t want to see students or anyone else who rents these properties kicked out on the street, his team has concerns about electrical safety, smoke and CO detectors, and sufficient exits for tenants.

“We’re not out to de-house students. That’s not the idea. We want to ensure conditions are safe and it’s legal according to zoning bylaws,’’ Blakes says.

“These students don’t know their rights; they’re thousands of miles from home ... they don’t know what they should be getting for their $600 or $700 a month. From what I can see in a lot of these occasions, they’re not getting very much,’’ Blakes says.

“Meanwhile, some (operator) is making $6,000 or $7,000 a month. Not bad if you own four or five (houses with illegal occupancy),’’ he adds.

Meera Mahendran, of Gladys Rd., is charged with owning/operating the home, a zoning violation. Reached at her home Sunday, Mahendran refused comment.

MLS also slapped Yixuan (Jessica) Wang, an agent with Re/Max Realtron Realty Inc. in Willowdale, with a summons for owning/operating the property. MLS alleges Wang arranged the leases and helped collect rents from students living there.

Wang denies the allegations against her concerning the Military Trail address. She promised to call back and speak further, but didn’t.

Kumarasamy Kunanayaham was also charged by MLS under the City of Toronto Act with obstruction for allegedly misleading inspectors.

It’s unclear how much illegal housing exists across the city, but one MLS manager says he knows of at least one home under investigation downtown near the Annex believed to be housing as many students as the one on Military Trail.

It’s a common suburban problem where post-secondary schools and subdivisions exist side by side with few or no student residences.

The licensing department says there are 120 active files stemming from complaints over suspected illegal properties in Scarborough. Many are believed to be homes converted to accommodate students.

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City Councillor Ron Moeser, whose ward covers the Highland Creek community in east Scarborough where much of the student housing is located, says he’s seen the number of these units rising.

Similar problems arose in the city of Oshawa, which now allows homes with up to four bedrooms in a specific area near Durham College and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) in north Oshawa.

Attendance at U of T’s Scarborough campus has grown over the years, but “unfortunately the housing in the area hasn’t kept up,’’ Moeser notes.

The campus has 11,107 students, but only 765 beds in its student residence. Adjacent to that, Centennial College’s Morningside Ave. campus has 3,500 students and no residence.

Andrew Arifuzzaman, the chief administrative officer at U of T’s Scarborough campus, has been working closely with Moeser’s office and residents in the neighbourhood to address any concerns around student housing.

“We haven’t received ... the traditional complaints about large community parties. Most of the complaints were about students not interacting with neighbours. There were some issues about lawns not being cut,’’ he adds.

One of the students in the home on Military Trail, who asked not to be identified, says she pays $450 a month. Before moving in, she searched for a place that was affordable to rent close to her school, and saw the ad for the room on the lawn of the home.

She doesn’t have a lot of complaints about conditions in the home, but did say she’s unhappy the owner is rarely around to address any of her concerns.

Under zoning regulations in Scarborough, a number of people can live in a home if they demonstrate they are pooling the rent, sharing common areas and living as a family.

But 11 people living in separate rooms and paying individual rent, is not a single-family home, says Blakes, the MLS manager, referring to the Military Trail home.

Similar rules exist in North York and East York.

Rooming houses are permitted and regulated in Etobicoke and within the boundaries of old, pre-amalgamation Toronto. For a fee, owner-operators can apply to run properties in old Toronto, with the proviso that there will be annual inspections by MLS, as well as building and fire department personnel.

“These types of circumstances are regulated, and therefore students themselves or other occupants are not victimized by substandard conditions,’’ says Gus Michaels, a manager of investigative services with MLS’s Toronto district.