The owner of an illicit east-side rooming house that caught fire Tuesday night, killing three people, has been ordered to demolish the property by the City of Vancouver.

“We are issuing an order today to the property owner to demolish the property,” deputy city manager Sadhu Johnston said Thursday.

If the owner doesn’t comply by Jan. 14, said Johnston, city staff will seek an order from council to demolish the property themselves.

On Tuesday night, a faulty electrical cord connected to an old set of Christmas lights started a fire at the small home at 2862 Pandora St., killing three and sending one to hospital.

Johnston confirmed Thursday that the city’s bylaw department — along with firefighters and police — had issues with the property dating back years.

Those issues came to a head last spring when the city discovered the property was being used as a rooming house, in contravention of city bylaws that state no more than five unrelated people can live at a single home.

On Aug. 26, the city ordered the owner — listed in property records as Choi H. Leong– to stop renting to multiple tenants and to make repairs by Oct. 31.

The city conducted a followup inspection on Nov. 5.

A copy of that inspection report, released Thursday by the city, indicates nine people were living in the house at that time, including individuals identified as Joe, Garland, Steven, Dwayne, Mathew and Harry.

According to the report, only minimal repairs had taken place and there were “no interconnected, hardwired smoke alarms.”

Extension cords were being used as substitutes for fixed wiring and a gas stove in the kitchen was not approved by the Canadian Standards Association.

During an earlier inspection conducted on June 28, inspectors found padlocks on some bedroom doors, “cords strung across the ceiling,” a light fixture that had “evidence of catching on fire” and a two-burner hot plate located in a sitting room.

The property has a long history of bylaw infractions — including fire damage and faulty plumbing and wiring — dating back to at least 1998.

Johnston said city staff decided after November’s followup inspection to have the city prosecutor pursue fines against the owner in court and to go to council for approval to pursue a court injunction ordering the home vacated.

However, more than six weeks after the last inspection, neither had occurred.

“The process was underway,” said Johnston. “It’s not abnormal for it to take a month or two for us to file for legal action. We would have been before council in January asking for an injunction to vacate the building.”

Johnston said properties like 2862 Pandora are rare.

“Every year we issue 6,000 violation orders and probably 20 to 40 have the scale of these types of problems,” he said. “We try to strike a balance with bringing these property owners into compliance and ensuring that we’re not booting people out on the street.”

Each year, said Johnston, the city obtains five to 10 court injunctions against property owners — either to vacate a property or to make repairs.