Penetanguishene brothers who survived building collapse say there were early signs of trouble with structure

Lenny and Robin Beecroft say they are lucky to be alive after their Penetanguishene apartment building collapsed while they were sleeping, instantly turning the brothers' lives upside down and leaving them homeless with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Lenny, 60, said he fell from his apartment into the debris below when the walls came down around 3 a.m. on Thurs., Sept. 7.

"I ended up in a pile of rubble in my underwear," he recalled. "It's crazy because you would think the bed would have come with me, but it didn't."

"It was very, very scary when my wall and the furniture started to cave in on me. And so a firefighter came and got me, and I was so shaken I couldn't even walk," Robin, 56, said.

A panicked Robin said he called for his brother through the chaos.

"I said, 'Where are you Lenny!' Cause he was yelling for me," he said, recalling the terrifying experience.

Both men, incredibly, walked away relatively unscathed.

"All I got is a scrape on my arm. Few bumps, few bruises, few scrapes, and I'm still standing, unlike that building," Lenny said.

• RELATED | Firefighters find missing pets alive days after building collapse in Penetanguishene

A historic Main Street building collapsed in Penetanguishene, Ont., on Thurs., Sept. 7, 2023. (Source: Penetanguishene Fire Department)

The Beecroft brothers said they had noticed signs of trouble with the Main Street building long before it came crashing down.

Robin said living in the historic building was "terrible."

"It's got asbestos and mould," he said. "In the wintertime, it was very cold. There's no insulation upstairs in our part."

"Every now and then, we used to hear like debris falling from the ceiling in between the walls, and a few days before it started to crack, we heard pops and bangs and cracks. I thought it was someone throwing walnuts at my window - but it was the building," Lenny added.

Days after the collapse, firefighters found the Beecroft brother's missing cat, hungry and frightened but uninjured.

"They found Angel, [and] they found some pictures," Lenny said.

And that wasn't all firefighters were able to recover from the debris.

"They found the urns," Lenny said.

While searching the demolition site, firefighters located undamaged family urns containing the ashes of the Beecroft brothers' stepdad, brother Jimmy, and some pets.

"And thank goodness. We were crying about that," Robin said.

"We don't want to lose them," Lenny said. "Very, very thankful."

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The collapse left 14 people homeless and forced the closure of four businesses.

Penetanguishene Mayor Doug Rawson said it's too soon to say when they might be able to return.

"The main thing right now is all about public safety. There's a lot of work to be done. Our engineers are providing daily updates on the status of current assessments of the facilities. We don't have a definitive time of when people can come home," the mayor said, adding it could be weeks before officials have answers for the displaced residents.

"It's really about doing assessments on each facility. We need the engineers to give us the guidance and the support to make sure that when we do give the all-clear that it's safe for people to come back home," Rawson said.

A GoFundMe campaign to help the Beecroft brothers, who are currently staying at a Super 8 motel in Midland, get back on their feet has been launched. To date, it has raised over $1,800.