An Oakwood Avenue family is frustrated and fuming after Toronto city workers repairing a public sidewalk Monday accidentally bored a massive hole into their basement.

To add insult to injury, Erin Bell and David Stone say, the city is now insisting the couple pay for the repairs themselves.

“It’s disappointing, it’s angering, it’s frustrating, and it’s almost unbelievable,” Stone told CBC Toronto. “The city destroyed my home.”

As of Wednesday, city officials blocked off the entrance to both the upper-level apartment and the couple’s ground-floor music school. They also tacked a notice to the front door declaring the building unsafe. The order requires the couple hire an engineer to assess the damage, apply for any necessary building permits, and have the building repaired.

To access their home, the couple and their two school-aged children have to go around the back of the building and into a neighbour’s yard, from which they climb a chain-link fence into their own enclosed backyard, which has a staircase up to their rear entrance.

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