Residents of Roxton Rd. in Little Italy were awoken by firefighters just after 11:30 p.m. Wednesday with a simple message: “Get your family and get out.”

One of the neighbouring houses, a tall semi-detached Victorian that had been undergoing major foundation work, had partially collapsed, and it wasn’t clear if the rest of the house was going to come down too.

Power and gas lines were cut to the house at number 290, and everyone was allowed to return to their beds except those at 292, which was declared unsafe along with its neighbour.

On Thursday morning, yellow tape surrounded the two houses, as students from nearby Central Commerce Collegiate stopped to gawk at the gaping hole in the side wall and the wooden joists that had tumbled akimbo, visible through the front window.

“Gnarly,” said one young student, to a chorus of laughs.

Matt Christie, who identified himself as the house’s owner, paced back and forth on the sidewalk, eager for news from the inspectors from the city and the ministry of labour.

He had rushed over the night before when his neighbours called to tell him the house was making a lot of noise, and began ringing the bells at the attached house next door.

Architect’s plans in hand, Christie said he had just bought the house and was doing a major renovation, but never thought this would happen.

“Fortunately, we did everything by the book and it’s all insured. So there won’t be a financial loss, just a delay,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s just the back of the house.”

Harry Gliddon, a real estate agent who listed the house last year, remembers it as an old house — more than a century old — that was part of an estate sale.

“It was a fixer-upper, priced to appeal to renovators,” he said. “It was considered to have good bones and a lot of potential.”

Corporate records and Christie’s LinkedIn profile indicate that he is a real estate investor.

Property records show the house was purchased by Krysten Christie for $925,000 in late December last year.

On her Pinterest account, Krysten Christie has a board named Roxton with hundreds of photos of renovated kitchens and bathrooms.

Neighbours and workers at the newly built houses across the street said they had noticed an excavator and a lot of dirt being carted out over the past few weeks.

The city issued a building permit for an addition to the house, which included both benching and underpinning of the foundation, said deputy chief building official Mario Angelucci.

A city inspector visiting the site Wednesday afternoon noted that the underpinning wasn’t being done properly, Angelucci said. The inspector gave the contractors a verbal order to immediately shore up the foundation where they had excavated, he said.

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The contractor agreed to comply, Angelucci said, and he was informed that no further work could be completed until an engineer established a remedial plan. The inspector was going to deliver the written order Thursday, but that was pre-empted by the collapse.

Christie says the city didn't inform him of the stop work order and that he wasn't aware of any problems until his neighbours called.

In the early afternoon, bricks began to tumble again and more of the side wall collapsed, sending the neighbours scurrying out their front doors a second time.

Mireille Albornoz, who owns the house attached to Christie’s, arrived shortly afterward and shook her head.

She said Christie had approached her for permission to underpin the wall shared by the two houses, and she had considered the offer until a friend told her it was risky work.

“I told him of the risks involved,” she said. “I’m glad I didn’t give him permission.”

At the city, Angelucci confirmed that the shared wall was being reinforced by benching, a less complex technique, which doesn’t require a neighbour’s permission because it takes place on only one side of the wall.

Albornoz thinks this may have saved her house.

“I’m glad that everyone’s safe, but I know that people do this without permits all the time and they should know what could happen,” she said.

The city has issued unsafe orders to both houses and no one will be able to return until an engineer completes a review.