City of Toronto staff clean the area outside an apartment building on Grange Avenue after inspectors found more than 100 violations at the property — from structural issues to dead rodents. (CBC)Toronto building inspectors found nearly 10,000 violations in about 200 apartment buildings during 2009, up dramatically from 47 the year before.

Everything from faulty balconies and crumbling staircases to cracks in the foundation were spotted by the municipal inspection teams.

The inspections are part of the city's attempt to crack down on property owners who let maintenance of their buildings slide.

The increase in apartment inspections came after a torrent of complaints by tenants across the city in 2008 about landlords who are neglecting apartment buildings.

Bill Blakes, who heads the city's inspection team, said some landlords try to fight the tickets they get for violating property laws; others just ignore them.

'We've seen dead rats on the way in.'— Bill Blakes, municipal building inspector

Some landlords have a lot to answer for, Blakes said. During a recent visit to a property at 164-168 Grange Ave., inspectors found many violations.

Blakes said some steps at the property pose a trip hazard, "but in the overall condition, I think a trip hazard is the least of people's worries here. We've seen dead rats on the way in."

Inspectors found more than 100 violations — including structural issues, rodents and general filth at the Grange Avenue property. City workers were sent Friday to clean the garbage and vermin from the buildings.

The tenants of the worst buildings usually aren't the ones who complain, say city officials.

"When we went out to buildings this year, we actually found that some of our most problematic buildings that we came across had the fewest complaints, historically," said Jim Hart, the city's executive director of licensing and standards.

"Sometimes, that is a result of the tenants in those buildings [being] … afraid to complain. Maybe they've come from different countries where if they complain, there were consequences.

"So, we often find that in certain buildings that are sometimes the most problematic buildings, the complaints aren't there. If we don't get out there on a proactive basis, we'll never know, though."

The Greater Toronto Apartment Association has welcomed the increase in inspections, saying it preferred targeted inspections on buildings with a history of problems rather than an across-the-board licence fee on landlords, which is something the city also considered.

But the inspection team has its work cut out for it: there are about 6,000 apartment buildings in Toronto, and most are more than 40 years old.