Anastasia Pioro, who is of Ukrainian descent and has a family in Ukraine, said the flag and other signs of support for the war-torn country have hung from the window of her third-floor apartment without any problems since Russia invaded Ukraine. on February 24th.
But on Saturday, she said she received a phone call from the building inspector asking her to remove the flag because of complaints she had received from other occupants and the possibility of vandalism.
She denied it and was informed that she was violating the building regulations.  Pioro said she was told she would receive a formal breach notice from the property management company.
“Then I asked him, ‘Who is complaining and why is he complaining?’  “I do not understand what is so wrong,” Pioro told CTV News Toronto.  He said, “Well, how would you feel if all the Russians in the building put their flag?”
A copy of the statute that Pioro is accused of violating, shown on CTV News Toronto, states, “No window, visible from the outside, will have a window covering that is anything but white or off-white.”
Pioro said she and her partner Mykyta Hreidin – a Ukrainian expatriate currently in Spain working to register his mother and siblings as refugees – felt “disrespected” by the action.
He explained that calling Hreidin and explaining the situation before removing the screen was “one of the most horrible things” he ever had to do.
“Now he’s just folded, he’s sitting in my chair,” Pioro said.  “I had to be silent.”
Pioro said the removal of the flag had a particularly creepy effect on her mother, who was born and raised in Soviet-era Ukraine.
“He said, ‘I’m 62 years old and all my life the Russians have told me to shut up.  “I was told I should be ashamed of being Ukrainian,” Pioro recalled.  He said: “Folding this flag is like asking this generation to be silent.”
CTV News Toronto contacted the building management company to comment on this story.


APARTMENT RULES AGAINST WINDOWS SHOW ‘COMMON’: SPECIAL 
While the blue and yellow flags have been a rallying cry since February 24, wherever Ukrainian roots are found, the practice of real estate agents imposing what can and cannot be placed on windows facing the public is common, they say. the experts.
“It all depends on the written rules of the condo company,” said John Andrew, a private commercial and urban planning consultant who worked as a professor at Queen’s University and was director of Real Estate Roundtable.
“It is common for there to be prohibitions for things to be displayed outside the unit or visible from the outside.  This will include a flag, in most cases.  “Therefore, it is unlikely that a political statement will stop – more on the general rule.”
In addition, as Toronto real estate attorney Bob Aaron sees it, regulations enacted by a real estate management company must be followed as part of the tenant or landlord agreement to reside on the site.
“It’s not a matter of law or order.  “The issue is whether the apartment regulations prohibit the attachment of anything outside the building, which is normal,” Aaron said.
Aaron said there is case law in favor of banning certain objects from building management and that a tenant or landlord must comply with these rules or take further action against them.