Northern Gate Retirement Community – Stouffville, Ontario April 3rd, 2011 – The billboard at Northern Gate states "Care Free • Luxury • Life Style." But is it really? I have several hundred photographs taken during the period of March, 2008 through February 2011 exemplifying the maintenance, landscaping & snow removal during this +/- 3 year period and  you can decide for yourself whether the Life Style at Northern Gate is truly a "Care Free • Luxury • Life Style." If you would like to see the photos send an email with Photo ID to photos@mac1st.ca with the words Northern Gate Photos in the subject line. Note of December 5th, 2009: I have been threatened with a Libel & Slander Claim by Northern Gate and Jim McCarthy for apparently writing here what I believe to be truthful statements relating to my experience in trying to deal with Northern Gate and Jim McCarthy. They have also attempted to shut me up by demanding this post be removed from this site without providing a shred of evidence to support their demand. I do not apologize for anything I have written here as I believe or believed at the time the statements were made they were fair comment and truthful in their nature. I have shown below items which I think are relevant to the accusations they have made against me in ( ). (I think it rather unfortunate that they would rather turn this into a pissing contest that simply pick up a telephone or knock on the door and look to settle outstanding matters in a professional and business like manner. Better still, reimburse me for services I have paid for and which were never provided since I had advised them in March of 2009 that I fully intended on making my thoughts on the issues expressed here available on the internet!) January 14th, 2010 – It has been 396 Days since advising Northern Gate in writing of some 16 SIXTEEN concerns I had. Since that date they have done what they usually do about at least 12 of these concerns – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It has also now been a week since I called the property Manager, Darryl DeSouza at Northern Gate to ask that he look into a terrible smell coming from the drains in all three of the bathrooms and to inquire as to why some residents in the community get their driveways shoveled clean and others do not! The response from Northern Gate as of this date has been once again, to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Is Darryl DeSouza really the Manager and or Property Manager at Northern Gate? Both he and or Northern Gate would certainly have you believe that he is one or the other or perhaps both. On the other hand however, Northern Gates ’s Solicitor refers to Mr. DeSouza in Court as a mere grass cutter so who really knows for sure. By the way, have you got an extra $50,000.00 more less to throw away? Should you, for any reason, other than death, decide that you made an error in judgment in choosing Northern Gate and decide to "sell" your life lease, $50,000.00 would be the approx. cost of getting out assuming that you sold your life lease for $350,000.00 which would be calculated as $350,000.00 x 10% to Northern Gate (This is what they charge to change the ownership record of your Life Lease in their files unless of course they choose to buy you out themselves – I have been advise by at least one resident that their fee alone is now 15%) and add say 5% to your Realtor would be a total $350,000.00 x 15% = $52,500.00 plus GST on your Realtor's Fees and I would assume Northern Gate's Fee as well. This post simply states our experience at Northern Gate Retirement Community in Stouffville, Ontario. You might want to consider some or all of this when thinking of making a purchase there. We made arrangements to lease a home at Northern Gate in early 2008 with the intention of possibly purchasing if we found everything to our satisfaction. Negotiations were conducted through Northern Gate’s Realtors Ron Elliott and Susan Cogar of Sutton Group – town and country realty ltd. It should be noted here that none of the homes at Northern Gate are really for sale. What you’re getting is a “Lifetime Lease” as opposed to actually owning the property. Consider: We leased a property, the sale of which closed in September 2007. Since September 2007 not one single effort has been made to apply a finish coat of paint to the outside of the patio doors in spite of the fact that there are painters seen on the site at least twice a week during good weather. It took over a year to repair the doors which warped leading from the kitchen to the patio and even then we were advised the repairs likely will not last. We were led to believe (by their door repair people) at this time that the doors and windows used in these home are of the cheapest quality available. Now the door lites are warped! Northern Gate are responsible for the ownership, repair and or replacement of all appliances as well as landscaping and snow removal. In spite of complaints about the Dishwasher between March, 2007 & June 2009 not one single effort was made to correct or replace it. In fact it took over 9 months before Northern Gate even bothered to have Bart’s Appliances of Stouffville look at it which resulted in 2 completely different stories. Bart’s Appliances advised us that the Dishwasher could not wash dishes. He went so far as to say he had installed a seven year old whirlpool dishwasher for another of his clients that did a better job at cleaning dishes than ours ever could. He also stated that he would try to resolve the issue by getting a new set of brains for it ASAP. Of course, Bart’s Appliances has never as of the date of this posting ever called back. Furthermore Bart’s advised Northern Gate behind our back that there is nothing wrong with and of course Northern Gate don’t want to replace or repair it. But this is only one of example of how these liars operate. In spite of a call made to Bart’s Appliances to explain his deceit, to this date he has failed to return the call. Perhaps, one might want to think twice or more before dealing which such an appliance firm So, after some 15 months We finally called GE who made the Dishwasher. They never authorized Bart's Appliance to do a service call and had never had a report from Northern Gate that there was even anything wrong with it. To GE's credit, they arranged to have the Dishwasher replaced & upgraded free of charge – NO THANKS TO NORTHERN GATE who during that time could not be bothered to even so much as lift a finger to make a telephone call to GE. None of the closets in the bedrooms are deep enough to actually hang clothes without having them constantly rubbing against the closet doors. The third bedroom/spare room in the basement has no windows or closets. There are also no linen closets anywhere on the main floor. It took Northern Gate 10 months to replace a broken weather-strip on the bottom of the front door which all through this time had been allowing water, rain & snow to enter the house. Even the simplest of tasks, for example replacing a bathroom light fixture took over 4 months. We eventually deducted the cost of replacing a kettle from the monthly maintenance fees which blew up due to a faulty receptacle which itself took over 3 months to have repaired. (See Photo Here) (Notice scorch marks on cover and surrounding wall which they deny was ever a problem even though they were informed of the problem in writing on March 12, 2008, seen the kettle and when the cost of replacing the kettle was deducted in AUGUST 2008 they not only said nothing, they did nothing!) It gets better, when the hot water heater quit working, there were at least one and sometimes two appointments per day over a three day period made for the appropriate service people to come and repair the problem while we had to sit home and wait for them to show up. All of these appointments. No one showed up until the 4th day. We were never compensated for our wasted time or lack of hot water. Pot holes are left unfilled for the most part for what is now approaching 15 months. Heavy equipment is used during the winter months which in some case has scratched some of the interlock as well as caused it to heave in places. Maintenance fees, instead of heading down as we and others were advised have headed up. Part of this increase is allegedly due to increase in the cost of water testing even though the Town of Stouffville has stated that it through York Region supplies the water which is already been tested by them. However, since Northern Gate have allegedly refused to open their books, (or provide confirmation of increased costs by way of actual invoices who can really say why the cost of maintenance is going up. (see memo of 03.18.2009) (NOTE: According to the letter threatening libel & slander this issue does not effect me and should be addressed with the landlord. I beg to differ as there is a contract/agreement with Northern Gate with my signature on it as well as Jim McCarthy's) The alarm provided by Northern Gate with emergency call was to be monitored by Counterforce in Mississauga, Ontario. However we contend that it was never monitored until over a year after we moved in which was in March, 2008. We were NEVER supplied with any written notice or certificate of monitoring until the date of the LTB hearing and the Certificate shown at that time was dated July 2008 – 5 months after moving in. We have been in touch with Counterforce both via email and facsimile in an attempt to obtain a listing of all alarms during the time they claim it was monitored etc., but they, like Bart’s Appliances seem to have little or no interest in responding to us since March 26th, 2009. In terms of landscaping, the only time weeds, which been allowed to grow over 3′ in height were cut down was when we did it. The flower beds or whatever have never been weeded by their grounds people, and when the grass is cut, rather than move around a flower pot the grounds people would rather cut it up with their tools. (perhaps I was more than a little frustrated when I wrote this and might have said 2' to 3 ') (See Photo Example Here which also includes examples of lawn mowing and disposal of grass) Did Northern & McCarthy know about the weeds? Yes, not only did they occupy the unit right beside me they were also informed in writing in the event they chose not see on AUGUST 1st, 2008) Then when we decided to take some of our concerns to the Landlord & Tenant Board, the Realtor, Ron Elliott from whom we had made the original arrangement to lease with, signed on behalf of the landlord a letter stating that I had used abusive language when I had last talked to him. However, when he was confronted and asked to give one single example of anything that I might have said to him he could not remember so much as one single word. Northern Gate refuses to reimburse for a furnace filter, alleging that that their people replaced it when in fact we have a form from their people stating it was not replaced! Jim McCarthy, who seems to be the boss of bosses at Northern Gate – all I can say is beware of this character as he is willing to lie, misrepresent both verbally and in writing! (I have just recently obtained a copy of a letter he wrote on Northern Gate Letterhead and am satisfied that in this letter if he did not outright lie about me he most certainly made representations that are not in any way truthful or close to fair comment) (Given that Northern Gate and McCarthy have through their solicitor denied the issues of the electrical outlet, weeds and have charged in their maintenance fees for services that were paid for by me and never provided in some cases, I will leave it up to you to decide who is not telling the truth!) The best interests of Northern Gate seem to lie in waiting you out in hopes that you will go away and all will be forgotten. Even when they had information such as the questionable Alarm Monitoring Certificate or the information supplied by Bart’s Appliances they did not have the guts to even say a word to us as of the date of this post even though they knew these items were in question since moving in. Discrimination – do not expect be treated equally here either. Some residents get things done like having their lawns fixed after they were messed up during the winter by the snow removal people but apparently other residents do not rate this consideration. The same applies to trimming of grass etc. during the summer of 2009. Mr. Jim McCarthy is such a proud and considerate sort of person that he will not even consider meeting with the residents of Northern Gate en mass to discuss their concerns. So as one might gather, the folks at Northern Gate and some of their Vendors/Suppliers would rather run & hide or make up stories to achieve their own ends. Never have I seen so many people so willing to lie, cheat and deprive residents of their rights in my life. So……………….Still thinking of retiring at Northern Gate? Update 2009 – Northern Gate has apparently dismissed it's landscapers in favour of having the property manager physically mow the lawn, which he leaves so short it almost looks bald. Occasionally he actually gets out the blower to remove clippings from the walkways and patios but cannot seem to get himself to avoid leaving mower marks all over some patios, never mind removal of same. Although I am not certain how one qualifies for the service, but he will actually repair some lawns and walkways that were damaged through the winter by their front end loader but certainly not all. Perhaps it depend on whether they like you. Another problem in this little community is there are a couple of residents who actually do most of their own landscaping and that of some of the other residents. I call them enablers because as long as they continue to do this Northern Gate gets away with doing virtually nothing while getting paid extremely well by way of maintenance fees which have jumped to some $400.00 per month as opposed to decreasing as originally promised. About Privacy – No need to worry about that here, there wasn't any. At least not in my case as both Northern Gate employees and or their colleagues did not hesitate to break and enter into my unit without any legal right or excuse to do so. This happened to me twice and the first time it happened they did not even have the decency to lock the doors on their way out!

When thinking of "buying" at Norhern Gate the bottom Line, in my opinion boils down to two words, CAVEAT EMPTOR!

Originally Posted 5.18.2009 – Revised 03.12.2012