Montreal man forced to replace furniture after it was ruined in storage by mice

A Montreal man is warning others after his furniture was destroyed by mice while in storage.

A Montreal man had to replace most of his furniture that was damaged while in storage and now wants other people to know what happened so it doesn’t happen to them.

Bruce Hogan just moved into his new apartment but it’s a lot emptier than he hoped it would be.

“I used to have a beautiful shoe rack that I threw out because of the amount of urine that was on it,” he explained.

A few pieces of furniture are all that he has left.

For the past 13 months, most of his belongings were at a storage facility in Lachine but when Hogan arrived to move them out last week, “I started realizing mouse droppings. So I said, OK, that’s not normal. So I started pulling up more stuff, and as I pulled out my stuff, the worse it got,” he said.

He took photos showing droppings in his storage locker and said the smell of urine was extremely strong.

U-Haul told CTV News it is aware of the problem.

“The issue stemmed from the lockers of delinquent customers who had not paid their bills for several months or more,” reads part of the company’s written statement.

“When our team opened these lockers to clean them, many of the units contained food. Storing food is a violation of our contract because it attracts vermin.”

Hogan said the damage clearly isn’t his fault and claims since he reported it, he’s been getting the runaround.

“That’s the part that’s upsetting,” he said. “Not one person from higher up called to say, ‘We really apologize. We’re going to get this rectified as soon as possible.’”

In his contract, U-Haul stipulates the storage facility is not responsible for damage or loss and renters need to have insurance.

But Hogan said he didn’t have it since he was living with family at the time and didn’t have his own place. He expects his losses, including a couch, clothing, sheets and other items, to be around $2,500.

“The only thing that was salvageable was my mattress because I did have a mattress cover on it and my headboards were in between where they were protected,” he said.

He wants others to be aware, joking the only positive was that his move was an easy one because he barely had any furniture left.