By Michael Boriero – Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
François Kouévi claims to have been spontaneously evicted from his apartment in December 2020, forcing him to live out of his car for a brief period of time before finding a new home.
According to the Sherbrooke resident, he was working two jobs at the time. He arrived late from work, around 1 a.m., on Dec. 1 to find his room was emptied of all of his belongings. The only things that remained were his work clothes.
“She packed everything,” Kouévi said, referring to the property manager Diane Canuel. “My toothbrush, she packed everything, even my medicine for my eye; she put it in storage and I didn’t know the name of the storage.”
He told The Record in an interview that he felt harassed for months leading up to the eviction. When he moved in September 2020, Kouévi said almost immediately he started to receive calls and messages from owner Rémi Vaillancourt and Canuel asking him to leave.