From the curb, the lowrise brick apartment building with the tony Toronto address of 1 Rosedale Rd. appears idyllic. Its lawn is lush, flower beds in full bloom and the rental sign out front declares no vacancies.

But within its walls and common spaces, there have been years of ugliness, including calls to police.

Last year, the landlord brought in an investigator to look at complaints of racism raised by Dot and Paul Pang, the building’s only Asian tenants, including that someone had defaced letters they posted reminding others about their laundry times — the words “CRAZY PEOPLE” and “CRAZY CHINESE” had been scrawled on the notes.

The probe found human rights posters had been defaced and torn down, but that no other tenant racial discrimination was proved.

The investigator did highlight a litany of alleged unneighbourly behaviour — by tenants including the Pangs — within the L-shaped, 25-unit building. There were people peering in windows and feelings of being watched. Confrontations over “horrible” kitchen smells. Produce theft from container plants ringing a shared lawn. Cursing. Shouting. Filming tenants without consent. Threatening legal action for “innocuous” behaviour. Open speculation about tenants’ mental health.

And the problems didn’t end there.

On Tuesday, the Pangs will be in front of the Landlord and Tenant Board to fight an eviction that alleges their behaviour has interfered with others’ “reasonable enjoyment” of the building.

The landlord accuses the Pangs of uttering the word “racist” around tenants, using profanities and having loud conversations and phone calls, which the Pangs say were conducted in Cantonese.

The dispute is a microcosm of contemporary Toronto life and the tensions that emerge as the city becomes more diverse and ever denser. It’s what can happen when the walls are thin and notions of privacy and sanctuary are put to the test.

On a recent afternoon, the Pangs spoke in quiet tones in their two-bedroom apartment. They say they no longer speak on the phone in their apartment, communicating mostly by text. They avoid contact with neighbours.

The landlord, Dot told the Star, is “siding with the tenants because it’s easier” to get rid of them than to deal with the potential of facing a more costly complaint at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which is where they have told the landlord they will go.

“It’s a gang effort,” said Caryma Sa’d, the couple’s lawyer.

The building is owned by One Rosedale Road Inc., a company registered to Les Steiner. Property manager Aubrey Hannah told the Star it would not be “appropriate” to discuss the case prior to the hearing. The Star asked Hannah to pass along to Steiner an opportunity for comment, but did not hear back from Steiner.

What follows is based on interviews with the Pangs, detailed notes made by the couple, emails between tenants and the landlord, lawyers’ letters and a copy of the internal investigation into 1 Rosedale Rd., with tenant names redacted.

Rosedale was already the Pangs’ home neighbourhood in 2010 when — out walking Ginger, their beloved Shetland Sheepdog — they saw there was a vacancy at 1 Rosedale Rd.

Dot, a former journalist, and Paul, who works in banking, loved the address, but most of all, the vacant unit had a ground-level balcony and gate that opened up onto a large enclosed lawn — perfect for the aging Ginger.

On the day they moved in, Dot was using the elevator to move furniture and encountered an older female tenant. Dot told her she was moving in, to which the woman told her to “get out of my way.”

“I thought, it’s just a one-off, not a big deal,” said Dot.

Soon, there were tensions with the same older female tenant: Dot accused the tenant of pilfering produce from the Pangs’ planter while the tenant, who also owned a dog, wrongly believed Dot was complaining about her not picking up after it.

Another tenant knocked on their door one day “yelling and screaming that we weren’t fitting in, that we weren’t trying hard enough and that we alienated the wrong people,” said Dot. The Pangs complained to police about the harassment.

Contacted for this story, that tenant said he would not comment until after the Pangs’ eviction hearing. In an email, he urged the Star to “make every effort to speak to as many tenants as possible . . . in order to get a fuller picture of a highly unfortunate — and highly complex — situation.”

The Star has seen the 52-page report in which the investigator cites interviews with 21 tenants.

One Rosedale Rd. is home to academics, executives, professionals and retirees. The Pangs say they tried to win over tenants by dropping off small gifts during Chinese New Year and Christmas, and invited tenants to a barbecue. “None of it works,” said Dot. “In fact, in makes it worse.”

The Pangs say they first complained of racism to the landlord in 2012.

Between 2011 and 2014, there were problems in the shared laundry room. The Pangs posted notes asking people to respect their laundry time and they were repeatedly torn down and defaced, once with the words “CRAZY CHINESE.” Paul started coming home early to accompany Dot during their laundry times.

By February 2014 things had boiled over with the tenant who felt they were not fitting in. The Pangs reported him to police for repeated harassment. Police warned the tenant. Two days later, came a second warning.

Around that same time, 10 tenants from seven units in the building signed a petition. It was to be sent to a Toronto police community liaison officer who had been trying to arrange a meeting with the Pangs “to enable a reasonable discussion to take place concerning various complaints and disagreements,” which had resulted in a “great deal of unpleasantness, and have diminished our community and our enjoyment of 1 Rosedale Road.

“We wish that Mr. and Mrs. Pang would work with us to change this situation, just as we wish to work with them and not be left to pursue other remedies . . . .”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The Pangs saw the petition as a threat, targeting them for eviction. However, the independent investigator, who specializes in dispute resolution, would later conclude it was made “in good faith to resolve the situation.”

Const. Timothy Somers, an officer attached to 53 Division, emailed the Pangs to say a lawyer had contacted police about facilitating a mediation meeting between the Pangs and “several neighbours.” When the Pangs did not respond, a second email came from the officer advising that police had been sent the petition and asked whether they would participate in the meeting.

“Police have been involved in various tenant issues at 1 Rosedale Rd.,” Toronto police spokesperson Meaghan Gray told the Star, on behalf of officer Somers. “In many cases, the officers . . . have attempted to resolve these issues through mediation and other means.”

No criminal charges have been laid, said Gray. But police attempts to help the people get along clearly failed.

Amidst all this, and flagged as a problem in the independent investigator’s report, was the fact that a faucet used by tenants to water plants on the private lawn is positioned directly below the Pangs’ master bedroom window. People were constantly peering in. The Pangs felt they were being watched, while tenants using the yard felt the Pangs were watching them.

In September 2014 the Pangs retained a human rights lawyer to help draft a letter that they sent to the landlord detailing incidents of harassment. Months later, the tenant that the Pangs were having the most difficulty with moved into a unit farther away.

By then, the Pangs were dealing with a very sick dog — the only reason, they say, that they did not leave the building. Ginger, which was everything to them, would rebound but died in early 2016.

The Pangs got help from the Centre for Equality Rights in Housing Accommodation to call on building management to address the racial discrimination they felt they had faced. In response, human rights material was posted and distributed around the building. Some tenants were baffled by the material. Some postings were torn down from public spaces, but a management letter, posted in a common area, later made it clear what this was about.

“Please stop the racial discrimination at 1 Rosedale immediately!” it began, and stated that “some tenants in our building have been engaging in racial discrimination and harassment against our tenants of Asian descent.”

It was ripped down within a day. (A human rights pamphlet remains permanently posted inside the front doors, one of the recommendations stemming from the investigation.)

On May 5, 2016, just prior to the beginning of the independent investigation, the Pangs say they were away at church when their unit was broken into and their home stereo volume turned up to a level that prompted noise complaints.

There was no sign of a forced entry. Though there was a police investigation, no one was ever arrested.

Later that month, the lawyer hired by Hannah to investigate incidents between tenants, dating back to 2012, began his work. He found everyone he spoke with, including the Pangs, to be “very co-operative.” Some were sympathetic to the Pangs. At least one admitted to regrettable behaviour.

The 52-page report, shared by the Pangs with the Star, is at times contradictory, finding in one instance, for example, that not all tenants knew each other by name but at another, that tenants were tight and shared cleaners. It states that “what the Pangs see as racism is more likely to be tenants supporting their longtime popular neighbours.” The Pangs, the investigator wrote, were “outsiders to the social fabric of 1 Rosedale.”

Some residents felt they were being labelled racist by the landlord. They even demanded an apology for the human rights postings, which the investigator found was unwarranted, and the postings the right thing to do.

Aside from the human rights material being removed, no other tenant racial discrimination was proved, the report concluded. However, it did find the Pangs genuinely felt they were being discriminated against.

Eviction, the report noted before making 11 recommendations, is an “unlikely solution” to the problems in the building. They are not simple, take time, require money and do not guarantee a result, the report notes.

Yet, the landlord chose eviction, serving the Pangs their first notice last September. The Pangs, who will fight the eviction Tuesday, learned earlier this week that three tenants will be on the witness list, including the one they called the police about.

The couple is not optimistic things will change at 1 Rosedale Rd.

“It’s like living in occupied territory, surrounded by enemies,” said Dot. “Even if they smile and say hello, they are stabbing us in the back by making false complaints to the landlord.”