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I once moved into an illegal basement apartment in Toronto for a newspaper series about working undercover as a maid. At $750 a month, it was the most affordable roach-free dwelling I could find. What’s more, it helped my landlord, himself a cleaner at the Four Seasons, pay his mortgage. Secondary suites are mutually beneficial for renters and homeowners. So I applaud the controversial new legislation that has finally legalized the subterranean world of basement apartments. The province-wide law, which took effect in January, overrides any municipal bylaws prohibiting them—bylaws that were typically passed due to residents’ complaints about traffic congestion, overcrowded schools and, though less often vocalized, there-goes-the-neighbourhood fears.
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Back in 2004, when I was in my late 20s, my husband and I bought a condo in Toronto for all the reasons young people typically buy condos: we wanted to be right downtown, close to the things we enjoyed, and we couldn’t afford a house in any of our favourite neighbourhoods. Plus, the ease of condo life appealed to us. With no kids and little furniture, we had modest space requirements, and we certainly didn’t want to spend our weekends doing home repairs. Still, it took us a while to find a condo we wanted to live in. Even though many of the buildings we saw were just a few years old, they already looked timeworn, with cracking drywall and battered fixtures. If the finishes were shoddy, I worried there might be structural deficiencies, too. We ended up buying a one-bedroom-plus-den in a 1980s building—ancient by Toronto condo standards. Nothing about the common areas looked cool (in fact, the hallways had dated pink carpets), but the structure was reassuringly solid. In the few happy years we lived there, no infrastructure problems were revealed, the building was well maintained, and the monthly fees never went up.
The Buyers: Joel McConvey, a 33-year-old freelance writer and producer, and Amy Butoiske, the 33-year-old manager of the Worldwide Short Film Festival.
The last couple of years have been fantastic for Toronto diners. The city has experienced an explosion of hole-in-the-wall masterpieces, opened by people you’ve probably never heard of, doing inventive, surprising things with small kitchens. They often don’t care much about decor, and the rooms are usually noisy, but the places are packed night after night. A few weeks ago, on a Monday, I called one such restaurant to book a table for the following Thursday, and the man on the other end of the line laughed at me. He said he had an opening on a Thursday—six weeks from the day I had in mind. Other terrific restaurants don’t even take reservations. If you want a table, plan to wear comfortable shoes, because you’ll likely wait in line. At about 7 p.m. toward the end of the week, Dundas West and Queen West and East are the sidewalk gathering places of curious foodies in from Mississauga and Lawrence Park, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to rack up points on their credit cards. (That is, if the low-tech restaurant in question takes credit cards.) 
