For the second time in three years, a court has fined the owner of a west London house who crammed so many tenants into the modest abode, nine bedrooms weren’t enough — mattresses were found in closets and in the furnace room.

A numbered company that owns Food Island Supermarket at Wonderland Road and Oxford Street was fined $2,500 and placed on two years probation. A third strike and someone could end up in jail, said city bylaw chief Orest Katolyk.

“We’re dealing with a repeat offender (who put) people’s lives at risk,” he said Friday. “The next step, we’re talking about more than the issuing of a fine.”

The home at 1709 Beaverbrook Ave. is no stranger to controversy. Three years ago, its front door and banister were smeared with blood after one worker at Food Island was stabbed by another. An investigation of that house and another next door found at least 32 people living there. The owners of the two homes were fined $3,500.

Both owners were ordered to remove all but five bedrooms in each home, the most allowed in the residential neighbourhood, Katolyk said.

But though the owner of 1709 Beaverbrook made the required changes, neighbours later complained they saw drywall and other building material bring brought in. When bylaw officers investigated, they found even more bedrooms than the last time.

“We were beyond the stage of issuing a warning,” Katolyk said. “We went straight to charges.”

The Free Press phoned the owner, Ontario corporation 1843450 and the call was picked up by an employee at Food Island, who then passed the phone to a manager at both the corporation and the store, Anh Luong.

“This issue has been taken care of,” Luong told The Free Press. “We have a lawyer . . . I can’t tell you anything. . . . I don’t want to tell you anything about the company.”

The director of the numbered corporation is listed as Xiaoxing Shi, Katolyk said. The Free Press asked to speak with him at Food Island but was unable to reach him.

Three years ago, then store manager Curtis Nguyen claimed all the employees were Canadian citizens or permanent residents even though the man accused in the stabbing was a Chinese national held then on an immigration warrant. Nguyen also claimed the store let out-of-town employees live in the two Beaverbrook houses, for free until they found apartments, and that most had their own rooms.

jsher@postmedia.com

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