Already displaced by fire, Sudbury woman victim of attempted break-in at hotel
A tenant displaced in the downtown Sudbury fire last month said her hotel is denying her request to move her room to a centralized location following an attempted break-in.
"I feel like we're forgotten and left in the dark with everything," said Chrystal Walker.
Walker and her two daughters are staying at the Super 8 Hotel. On June 2, shortly before 10 p.m., Greater Sudbury police responded to an attempted break-in at the hotel.
Walker said she answered a knock at her door and found a woman who asked her for a cigarette. Feeling something wasn't right, she closed the door and told her 16-year-old daughter to take her nine-month-old sister to the back of the room.
Walker said the woman began banging aggressively on the door, demanding that she "give her back her baby."
She said the woman left temporarily, but returned some time later.
"I tried calling the front desk but the phone was broken, so I called my friend in a panic and told him to get the front desk to get someone to come help us," she said.
She said she broke a window to escape.
"In those few minutes, I broke the windows in the back she was coming through," Walker said.
"My eldest daughter, I got her out first and then I handed her the baby and I told her to calm down, to run to the front and I’ll be right behind her."
Walker said she was initially told that she could stay in a suite, located in a different area of the hotel. But that suddenly changed, she said.
Chrystal Walker, a tenant displaced in the downtown Sudbury fire last month, said her hotel is denying her request to move her room to a centralized location following an attempted break-in. (Amanda Hicks/CTV News)
Instead, Walker was moved to a different room in the same section of the hotel, which she said is more secluded. She wanted a more centralized location to protect herself and her family.
She said she reached out to the City of Greater Sudbury, who partnered with the Red Cross to support tenants displaced by the fire.
In an email to CTV News, the City of Greater Sudbury said it has client navigators assisting tenants displaced by the Coulson fire, but it is ultimately up to the hotel to decide where individuals are placed, based on availability.
Walker said she asked hotel management a number of times to be moved, but has been told they'll get back to her.
"I’d just prefer to be closer to anywhere else," she said.
'I'M PARANOID FOR THE KIDS'
"Like I said, I don’t need to be anywhere special. I'm paranoid for the kids. I couldn’t imagine if she'd gotten in."
In an email to CTV News, Greater Sudbury Police Service said the incident was mental-health related, that the individual was apprehended and taken to hospital for care. They said they don't believe it was a targeted incident.
Walker said, in part, it's the uncertainty of the situation is hardest to deal with.
"The uncertainty of not knowing, like where we're going to go, what we're going to do and it's chaotic, especially with a baby … I'd like to feel safe," she said.
Walker said she didn’t have tenant insurance and most of her family's possessions will have to be thrown out due to smoke damage.
She said she is grateful for the support from the Red Cross and from Coulson property owner, Tony Monteleone.
- Download our app to get local alerts on your device
- Get the latest local updates right to your inbox
Still, she said the situation is frustrating.
"We don’t have anything. It's just, everything's a challenge," Walker said.
The Super 8 declined CTV News' request for an interview.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Former Air Canada employees among suspects identified in gold heist at Pearson Airport: police
Nine people have been arrested in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year, Peel Regional Police said Wednesday.
MPs summon ArriveCan contractor to the House to be admonished in rare parliamentary display
Enacting an extraordinarily rarely used parliamentary power, MPs have summoned an ArriveCan contractor to appear before the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon to be admonished publicly for failing to answer their questions.
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
Gas prices across Ontario expected to climb to levels not seen since 2022, analyst says
Ontario is going to see a big jump at the pumps later this week as gas prices in the province hit levels not seen in nearly two years, according to one industry analyst.
Ancient skeletons unearthed in France reveal Mafia-style killings
More than 5,500 years ago, two women were tied up and probably buried alive in a ritual sacrifice, using a form of torture associated today with the Italian Mafia, according to an analysis of skeletons discovered at an archaeological site in southwest France.
10 years in U.S. prison for Canadian man who stole millions with fake psychic fraud
A former Montreal resident has been sentenced to 10 years in a United States federal prison for a multi-decade fraud that manipulated more than one million Americans into sending money to fake psychics.
'Enormous sum of money': Actor Hugh Grant settles privacy lawsuit against tabloid
British actor Hugh Grant has settled a lawsuit against the publisher of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspaper, The Sun, over claims journalists used private investigators to tap his phone and burgle his house, he said on Wednesday.
O.J. Simpson was chilling with a beer on a couch before Easter, lawyer says. 2 weeks later he was dead
O.J. Simpson's last robust discussion with his longtime lawyer was just before Easter, at the country club home Simpson leased southwest of the Las Vegas Strip. About a week later, on April 5, a doctor said Simpson was 'transitioning.'
Some of the winners and losers in the 2024 federal budget
With a variety of fiscal and policy measures announced in the federal budget, winners include small businesses and fintech companies while losers include the tobacco industry and Canadian pension funds.