Ontario home destroyed in 'suspicious' fire hours before tenant vacate order took effect

For Trina Parnell of Victoria, news a suspicious fire had ripped through a farmhouse north of Goderich, Ont., co-owned by her father was the latest in what has been a long list of frustrations.

As the executor, Parnell has been working with lawyers, her father and the children of her father's late brother since 2023 to get some estate issues cleared up and move forward with selling the house, located just off of Highway 21 near the shores of Lake Huron.

The long process became more complicated last October when a man named Keith Dietrich befriended her father and offered to become a tenant at the property in exchange for doing work to fix up the place. 

"I got a phone call from my father," said Parnell. "He seemed really excited. He met this guy and he wanted this guy to come help him fix the property up."

Parnell wasn't convinced it was a good idea. She was one year into the process of applying for the trusteeship and was worried a tenant on the property could become an impediment to the eventual sale. 

Parnell, however, said her father's hope was that it would allow the house to get fixed up before the trusteeship issue was solved and the sale could go through. 

Dietrich sent Parnell a lease document he had prepared, but Parnell and her lawyer had questions. Her lawyer recommended any lease have a short duration so it wouldn't get in the way of the sale. The lease Dietrich sent was for one year.

There were other issues with the proposed lease. It mentioned a rental amount of $800 a month, but didn't specify how much work would offset that amount. 

Still, Dietrich began living at the house "as a guest" with no legal lease, Parnell said. Before any of the lease issues could be resolved, the arrangement began to fray. Parnell's father and Dietrich soon began to feud over a handful of issues and Parnell's father said he wanted Dietrich to leave.

'We never gave him a key'

In mid-November, Parnell told Dietrich the arrangement wasn't working and asked him to leave, which he agreed to do, and he departed on Dec. 3. Before the end of the month, Parnell said, Dietrich was back on the property, claiming to have the rights of a tenant. Parnell insists that because no lease had been signed, Dietrich was essentially squatting there. 

"He never gave a damage deposit, we never gave him a key," said Parnell. 

CBC News reached out to Dietrich for comment on Monday and again on Tuesday, but had not received a reply by time of publication. 

Parnell called police in December, but said they refused to force Dietrich to leave because officers saw the situation as a landlord and tenant dispute, which can only be resolved by Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board.

She sees her situation as one that highlights flaws in the laws: A failure to properly distinguish between legitimate tenants and unlawful occupants who claim to be a tenant.

On her lawyer's advice, Parnell was able find another way to get Dietrich to leave the property. On March 28, Justice Leonard Ricchetti of the Superior Court of Justice granted a motion that requires Dietrich to leave. 

The order, which CBC News has viewed, says Dietrich has no right to the property and ordered him to leave by 11:01 a.m. ET on Friday, April 4. 

Building on fire when crews arrived

But then a fire broke out inside the house. Thirteen hours before the deadline for Dietrich to leave, fire crews from nearby communities of Ripley, Lucknow and Kincardine and the South Bruce OPP were called to the property. It was 10:16 p.m. on Thursday, April 3. 

In a statement to CBC News, Huron-Kinloss fire Chief Jeff Bradley said they found the house "fully involved" in flames. 

There were no injuries and no one has been charged, but police say the fire was "suspicious."

Now, Parnell said, the fire is another problem to deal with before the property can be sold. 

"I'm frustrated that to get this man off our property it took four months and within those four months he developed some belief that he was entitled to live there and entitled to claim rights to it," said Parnell.  

The family is now looking at whether it's worth the cost to clean up the property "so that we can sell a nice clean lot rather than something that has a bunch of junk and a burnt-down house on it." 

Ontario's Office of the Fire Marshal confirmed it is investigating the cause of the fire. Police are asking anyone with information to come forward.