'Get rid' of emergency crews, landlord told tenant after 911 call

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“He said I have to get rid of them.”

Those were the words uttered by her landlord, Yvette Peters testified, after she told him carbon monoxide alarms prompted her to call 911 on Sept. 20, 2017.

After evacuating the top two floors of the Liatris Dr. home they’d just recently moved into, Peters told Oshawa court Monday that landlord Maisum Ansari didn’t seem pleased she’d called the authorities.

“He said I had to get rid of them,” she told the judge-only trial of her 3 a.m. conversation with Ansari, which she says became a back-and-forth argument.

“I said, ‘How can I get rid of them? I can’t just tell them to leave.'”

Pickering fire crews eventually stumbled across a record 42 kilograms of carfentanil in the basement apartment, along with 33 vacuum-sealed firearms.

Ansari pleaded not guilty last week to more than 300 drug and weapons charges in connection with the discovery.

His basement tenant, whose identity is protected under a court-ordered publication ban, was to stand trial with Ansari but instead will face a jury later this year.

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Ansari was a long-time friend of Danforth Ave. shooter Faisal Hussein and his brother Fahad — even serving as Fahad’s surety after a 2017 arrest.

Fire Capt. Matthew Libich was part of the crew dispatched to the home that morning.

“We asked about trying to get entry to the basement, but the tenant said they had no access, and the landlord used it for storage,” he told Crown attorney Greg Walsh.

Finding no carbon monoxide inside the home and unable to reach Ansari by phone, firefighters had to jimmy open a basement window to take a reading inside. They discovered a “significant” amount of the deadly gas, court heard.

Libich testified that plans lower a firefighter in through a bathroom window were scuttled upon spotting totes full of a multi-coloured, “rock-like substance” on the sink and bathtub.

“I had no idea what it was, but it just didn’t seem right,” he said.

Once inside, fire crews observed more of the powder — later confirmed by police as $17 million of carfentanil — on nine baking sheets in the kitchen of the apparently unoccupied apartment.

The defence will cross-examine Peters Tuesday.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @bryanpassifiume