49 thorncliffe park drive

Toronto tenant calls out building for agonizing 20-minute elevator waits

While Toronto residents living in any high-rise condominium can expect a bit of a wait to board an elevator during the morning and post-work rush, one building is standing out among the rest with its excruciating 20-minute waits. 

Toronto resident, Farhad Mashwani, tells blogTO that there are "hundreds of problems" at his building, 49 Thorncliffe Park Dr., though the constant and lengthy elevator waits are one of the most critical issues facing tenants. 

Mashwani recently uploaded a photo of the massive lineup to board the elevator at his building on the Weird Toronto Facebook page, resulting in dozens of concerned and empathetic comments. 

Living in this building is like participating in a daily elevator queue marathon — we've turned waiting for the elevator into our neighbourhood sport," Mashwani wrote, noting that despite the four elevators at the building working properly, overpopulation makes it difficult to catch a lift in a timely manner. 

Similar to other apartment buildings, Mashwani told blogTO that the waits are the worst "between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.," with the average wait being around "20 minutes or more." 

He also highlighted a variety of other issues, including children playing in the lobby unaccompanied by their parents, locks not working, and even alleges that some one-bedroom apartments in the building house up to eight tenants. 

"Residents often park their cars in the visitors' parking lots, resulting in a shortage of available spaces when actual visitors arrive. Following numerous complaints to the building authorities, a decision was made to convert the visitor parking into a paid parking area. Now, if we have visitors, we must pay for their parking," Mashwani explained.

"And to think I complain about waiting two minutes for my elevator, never again," one person wrote under the post. 

"I work in this area and I'm in the buildings on this street a lot during the day. From what I've seen, these lineups are generally at the end of the school day when all the families are trying to get back home. Most of the day it's not like this (when I'm there). It's a wonderful community with a lot of big and/ or multigenerational families living together because of costs, new immigrants, etc.," another comment reads. 

blogTO reached out to the building's property manager for comment on the elevator waits, but has not received a response at the time of publication. 

Back in August, another Toronto building, located at 95 Broadway Ave., went viral for its painful 20-minute elevator waits.

The clip, which was initially shared via TikTok Live by realtor Alessandra Panno, shows dozens of tenants queueing to board an elevator on the complex's ground floor, as the video snakes through hallways leading back to the lobby. 

Lead photo by

Farhad Mashwani


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