A Cape Breton woman who is a self-confessed shopaholic and hoarder has lost her bid to save a home that she says her late husband built.
A court ruled Friday that it would not grant Sylvia Dolomont’s request to prevent the demolition of the house in North Sydney, which officials say is filled with debris, animal waste and rotting food.
“I’m absolutely devastated,” Dolomont said after the ruling came down. "I thought there might have been a little bit of compassion for me."
Dolomont doesn't actually live in the home. She moved to a second home around the corner after her husband passed away a few years ago.
The Cape Breton Regional Municipality says they've been receiving complaints about the odours and rodents for nearly a decade.
Dolomont said she spent $40,000 trying to appease the municipality, but CBRM manager Paul Burt says there has been “very little action.”
“We've tried to work with her all along, right up until the final hour, to come up with some other type of solution,” Burt said. “But it would involve quite a bit of work on her behalf.”
Burt said that the house is filled with mould and the joists and structures of the house are so rotted it presents a fire hazard.
“There are some structural issues with the home that have been identified and not corrected,” he said. “There have been concerns about electricity with the rodents in the home chewing on wires.”
CTV Atlantic video footage taken from the windows of the house shows it filled with furniture and various household items, and several filled garbage bags outside the house.
With reports from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore
