Toronto's Fake Houses

[@TheTrolleyPole]

One day, by chance, the tall wooden doors of the Glengrove Sub-station were open so I could peek inside from the sidewalk. The interior looked like that of an old factory, that had only a partial roof.

[@examplelife1567]

Substations were factories

[@transportationland6395]

Amazing content. I love your content like this, along with the trail history content. Keep up the quality work!

[@quadmods]

My friend worked at Toronto Hydro in the mid 90’s. He was tasked with assessing and preparing for sale dozens of “fake” houses and buildings. He had a 3 ring binder with every property they owned. Like a little info sheet for each one with black and white pictures and lot dimensions. When I would visit the binder was like a coffee table book I would browse with great interest. Cheers 👍

[@adammckenzie6074]

Sounds like good toilet reading material

[@KH40T1C_yt]

Dude how TF am I just finding your channel. This is the Toronto content I NEEED

[@EyeGlassTrainofMind]

That's really interesting! Especially to hear about how as technology has evolved, these false houses are in less demand. I wonder what the newer solution(s) are? Also, nice connection between Sir Henry and potentially the Glengrove Sub-station.

[@raisage]

Thanks for another really interesting and enjoyable video!

[@notsmoothsteve]

You're welcome. Thank you for your support!

[@raisage]

@@notsmoothsteve Thanks for all your great informative videos!

[@AlanKelly-nm9lx]

I will leave this here also.. wow u know so little about Toronto but so much at the same time hahah meth labs and crack houses are always run by csis/rcmp, they cook all their meth at 105 Isabella st and at 888 Bloor st run the cocaine/ after hours drugs mostly in kennington Market and all conducted by csis agent Bain Coote who lives at 1032 Dovercourt RD! lol I think you need a real education on the streets my friend. Still do enjoy your video's tho.........

[@campsitez2355]

1:52 what would be wrong with your neighbor turning their house into an air bnb exactly?

[@AS-qg1xu]

@@campsitez2355 I would hate to live beside an air bnb house! Loud music/partying in the night, strangers beside me! Can you not think of such pitfalls?

[@pineo81]

I left Nova Scotia in 2006 for Toronto, spent 10years in Edmonton. now back in the GTA. I still get so confused when my partner say the "Hydro bill" went up again. 18 years and I still think it means water! I don't recognise Toronto anymore with all those ugly condo buildings. Awesome video!

[@zdrux]

I've never left Toronto and I still don't recognize it.

[@123benny4]

I pass through Toronto on my way home and don't recognize it.

[@Roddy556]

I mean, you're not wrong.

[@doeeyes2]

​@@zdrux same! Its so depressing.

[@73cidalia]

Yeah. Short for hydroelectric because of the historical production of electricity using the power of Niagara Falls. I don't know if it's the same in Toronto, but in Hamilton our electric and water fees come on one bill.

[@bobbydigital8243]

I worked at a restaurant in Eglinton and Bathurst, behind my work was a neighborhood called Forrest hill, one of the most richest neighborhoods in the city with really big fancy houses. One day I decided to walk to work and walk back home after and I noticed a home just as nice as everyone else. but without curtains. and you could see a green box (the same ones you see outside) inside and bunch of transformers. That always was so strange to me until now, thank you.

[@buzztoffel]

This is so cool! There's an out-of-place looking house a couple blocks from where I live and I previously only knew it had something to do with electricity. Thanks for sharing !

[@da_SpiffR]

The castle-like building is spectacular! I'm loving (or at least liking) all your videos, and really appreciate the historical information.

[@fakeologist1]

Yes where is it located

[@MikeBaxterABC]

1:10 That would be so COOL to live next door! .. You could use the lawn for a soccer pitch, or pay toss across, I guess not archery practice, but you could set up any portable accuracy throw or pitching net! :), maybe even a picnic table?? Just having the big space with no neighbour there would be a belfit!! .. So cool!!

[@SeemsLikeSomething]

I remember as a kid, growing up down in the Niagara region, my dad once pointed out a hydro house and ever since I find them really easy to spot because of the lack of any plants or gardens that require much upkeep, and there’s usually just one kind of window covering for every window.

[@Pr3ttyMonster]

Do you remember where any were ?

[@SeemsLikeSomething]

@@Pr3ttyMonster I can’t sorry >< it was like 30 years ago now haha

[@jonburr6848]

Cool video! In Victoria, they tend to instead paint the substations to match the surrounding area exactly (sometimes with a print), such that they are camouflaged. We have fake houses, but its to have a consistent skyline

[@Naked_Snake]

Good to know we have our very own Toronto's Tom Scott! Love the presentation, will check out some of the fake houses.

[@TechOttawa]

Very cool - thanks for sharing. I'll never forget stumbling on a bunch of these on a walk from Manhattan to Gowanus Brooklyn - my path followed the train route and I found several styles of 'fake house' along a very fascinating route in a place I had only read about before. Amazing!

[@kikastra]

I used to be fascinated by these when I was a kid. The first one I remember seeing is the one at St. Clair and Pharmacy, which has been gone for awhile now.

[@AK.__]

Outstanding! Thank You! I knew that something "wrong" with the house on Yonge / Glengrove and thought that the plate is masking something else. The building on Eglinton / Duplex has very tall doors, like in MIB movie.

[@shesthebethest]

I was about to comment that we have so many in Scarborough, until the Brimley section came up!

[@funnylilcharacter]

your editing style reminds me of the old body break commercials. hella nostalgic.💪

[@ONLYinANTARCTICA]

OMG I did not know this. I sometimes pass that Victoria Park library not aware a fake house is just there. Fascinating 🧐

[@SaturnCanuck]

Great video sir. Living in Scarborough I am familiar with many of them and saw them many times. I recently found your channel and I have subscribed, and I also follow Geoff Marshall and Tim Traveler (who are friends BTW). I await more from you.

[@notsmoothsteve]

Tim recently provided some music for one of Geoff's videos :-)

[@SnapshotOfASoul]

I'm from BC and we had one of these on my street as a kid, which was built in the 70s. We figured out one Halloween that it was cleverly designed to have the only access be through the (oddly large) garage door. No front door - a gate in front of the "porch" obscured that fact. They serviced all the utilities from that big shed-style house and you'd never have known just walking by. We also have one near me now, that looks a bit more obvious thanks to an addition now, but used to look just like a house.

[@nicolasarenas8988]

Great Video! You might want to add some shots from a tripod or from a first person view of the shots you're showing us! Just something that might increase your views! Thanks for all the insightful information!

[@logustrate]

But his name is not smooth steve!

[@cherylmills150]

Excellent! Thank you for sharing your time, energy, and knowledge about "Fake Houses"!

[@MrMole962]

There’s a fake house in Oakville that I pass by all the time. It has a high voltage sign on the door, I assume it’s also for electrical. It’s a very interesting concept … and it makes total sense!

[@unnecessarilylonghandle]

I used to live very close to the Brimley Houses and they did very weird whenever I was waiting for a bus and I told my friends that that house is spooky and something is definitely not right about it...I mean electrified fence next to a school for what seems to be a small house? Glad it wasn't unsubstantiated!

[@crsh2007]

Where I lived in Sarnia, there was a house on a corner near our home. I was shocked to learn it housed electrical machinery because it looked so real 😮 Never seen that before.

[@mitchellyates9397]

There is also a fake Toronto Hydro house at 59 Dalegrove Crescent, just off of Martin Grove and Eglinton, in the neighborhood to the southwest of that intersection. It backs onto the hydro-cut running between the Richview transformer station and the AW Manby transmission station.

[@DatSimo]

Great stuff! Could listen to you nerd out about Toronto lore for hours!

[@FangsAnalSatan]

Great video. I always wondered if the building on the east side of Leslie at the 401 was a fake substation house.

[@travellingyeti6333]

Theres another on Midland/Ellesmere and Midland and Danforth! Lots in Scarborough!

[@malcolmmacmillan9699]

Great content. We spent most of our adult lives a 15 min. walk north-east of the Glengrove Substation. It actually looks identical to my wife's old school-Havergal! College

[@justnski]

There's a fake house just down the street from me on Royal York Road...good to know it still has some relatives

[@sscbkr48]

That's nothing.. Vancouver is full of fake people. 😄

[@AlexisManij]

Royal York north or south ? I grew up in Mimico. In Quebec now for 3 years & I do not speak French 😂

[@lacqueredhearts]

Subscribed, love this typeof Toronto lore!

[@monicapushkin3274]

There is the house at the north entrance of Spadina Station on Spadina Road .... a real old Annex house which is now sort of a fake house.

[@notsmoothsteve]

Keep your eyes on my channel in the coming months - that house will be making an appearance in a video, probably before spring!

[@eattherich9215]

Those suburban sub-station fake houses are a neat solution. I particularly like the look of @1:41 because the house resembles those found in towns all over the UK where I live.

[@chickennugget5372]

I live on Brimley, I’m gonna be looking for these everywhere now lol

[@demijour1234]

I live in TO and WOW!! did not even know this. LOL, learned something new. Thanks 🥰 So, there is no inside? If you peek inside the window what will you see?

[@bladder1010]

There's a really nice fake house at the corner of Kipling and Hunting Ridge in Etobicoke, right around the corner from where I grew up. We always wondered what it looked like inside.

[@doeeyes2]

Hey neighbour... or former neighbour 😉 ive lived in this area all my life.

[@thetiredtourist3927]

The fake house at Brimley and Lawrence was across the road from Eastside Plaza (a favourite local hang out in the 60's and early 70's) and was dubbed "The Resort". People would chill on the front steps.

[@49kittypretty1]

VERY interesting! I knew nothing about this. Great video.

[@billsinkins361]

There was one of these on Underhill (at Broadlands) when I was growing up. The entire structure has now been removed.

[@bodgerdavesumner]

There are many in Hamilton too. They are always a little posh looking & very well maintained. The ones that I know are detailed with beautiful stonework.

[@catherineannelockman3805]

I lived in Hamilton most of my life...where?...

[@bodgerdavesumner]

@@catherineannelockman3805 West side of Kenilworth near Maple. North side of Kin, west of Parkdale.

[@HannahandCailinLoesch]

I'm glad I came across this! It inspired a Google search and now I know that they are all over our city, NYC, too! Really interesting stuff. Thank you!!

[@ifergot]

Wow! I never knew these existed. I live in a different city in canada and I looked up the substations in my city. Turns out we have some in buildings and some in the giant chain linked areas. I would have never known that some buildings were substations unless I looked it up!

[@jasonmcdonald827]

Quite neat, There were one of those hydro/general function type buildings downtown kitchener with beautiful architecture being completely unused for years and years (built in the early 1900"s) and about 5-6 years ago was converted into a starbucks lol

[@Ezimodner]

One at 85 Elm Ridge Drive too, pretty central near Forest Hill.

[@williammacroberts2305]

I looked it up on street view, swanky.

[@Aimaiai]

In my neighbourhood in Rexdale at martin grove and west humber the substation house has a really flat, completely unused paved concrete backyard which ive used on numerous occasions to practice skateboarding and other extreme sports as I grew up lol

[@Xathian]

The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant was the shady office building for Ezra in the movie Nightmare Alley

[@blacksoulll4327]

Thought you would do the ttc building around 460 Lansdowne Ave

[@xChimkin]

glengrove station is gorgeous. why not give utility structures a nice design? encourage plant growth on and around the building as well

[@JayMeZe]

Rathburn rd beside hollycrest middle school has one too, theres actually more than 6 in that location scattered around. I seen some spooky stuff when i was there

[@younghokim1994]

Wow, I never knew why electricity was called hydro in Ontario. TIL! And I totally know where the one torn down is, that's River and Oak area iirc.

[@after12345]

Those music transitions are 🔥

[@coyoterx6002]

I’m curious as to what the long term health conditions are or where for the people that lived next to and around these sub-stations.

[@WeeCarBoot]

Surprised you did not include the truly massive one on the east side of Carlaw just south of the railway bridge at Gerrard. It's also tastefully done, and resembles an old mill or warehouse, as do the other buildings (now condos) on that stretch of Carlaw.

[@Chrishm0]

the Glengrove station reminds me of Havergal college (Avenue Road)

[@Terry11111]

That was pretty cool. Thanks for sharing 👍

[@nevarmaor]

As a kid I lived in Rexdale. There was a fake house near where my best friends lived and we always thought of it as a bit haunted.

[@jim8199]

Great content, I always want to know more about torontos past, especially anomalies around the city that I have wondered about. Mystery solved 👍

[@KokoandFooFoo]

I remember seeing a fake Hydro house when I was attending high school in East York in the late 90's. The house was on a corner of a residential street so from the front, it looked like a normal tiny house but from the other direction, you could see the rear of the house and all the electrical transformers.

[@HavokBWR]

I lived behind one of these while growing up! The back of ours had a fence so you couldnt see any of the equipment. It was a nice little shortcut to get to the highschool/ mall, so wed occasionally see some of the local kids cutting though our yard to cut through the fake house.

[@TheeSlickShady_Dave_K]

"This is Not the house you’re looking for" ... that got the Like👍🏼

[@JamesBrown-gv1vg]

OH THANK GOD! I was so worried this going to be a conspiracy video, but I was too curious not to watch.

[@DecentSAKTKPLAYER]

There was an old substation on Underhill drive, near Lawrence and Underhill and i remember they tore it down and now its sitting as and empty lot and about a month ago (as of writing this comment) I saw some workers removing the trees and bushes on the lot

[@tomrogers9467]

I’ve driven by those fakes on Brimley road for years. Everyone knew what they were, and really gave them no thought. The station at and Eglinton had a fire a few years back, I lived nearby then. Possibly that’s why they are eliminating it.

[@IanPattisonOakville]

I'm surprised you didn't include the one on the west side of Bay just north of Nathan Phillips.

[@davidgray3294]

I am not sure if you missed one, I did some work in a building in where I think still considered Parkdale, beautiful old building, and felt odd when inside as it was pretty much empty except for a couple transformers - Toronto had some odd voltages earlier on in our life

[@notsmoothsteve]

There are dozens of them scattered throughout the city - far too many to include in the video!

[@RealMatureBianca]

The one in Parkdale is gorgeous! Every time I walk by I daydream about living in there lol

[@WilliamAshleyOnline]

So much Toronto history --- did you ever do a video on the secret subway stations that are used by the military in Toronto, the cold war sites?

[@wayfaringspacepoet]

Sabrina Cruz and her colleagues at Answer in Progress also made a video exploring fake houses, around the same time you described

[@malgorzataweglowski9704]

is there any fake houses where I come from in Etobicoke. The West Mall and Rathburn area.? I lived in one of those 2 big condominiums. very nice area...Im going to move back there some day.

[@ChunChuee28]

Any reading for electromagnetic field emissions nearby?

[@RivieraUnivox]

In Victoria BC at the corner of Government and Bay is a cool Art Deco building that was once a hydro substation that was converted to office space in the 70s. 561 Worthington street in North Bay Ontario is a fake house substation.

[@captainjoshuagleiberman2778]

My first encounter with a fake house was one on Spadina, jjust north of Forest Hill Village. A friend of mine lived just north of it and one day i was passing it and there were Toronto Hydro workers there and they left the door open, it was fascinating until they told me to leave.😂

[@raydunn2582]

I was aware of these hidden electrical stations but didn't realize there were so many. The only one I know of is/was on Scarlet Rd. just S of Lawrence Ave.

[@ORGANIZEDCoNfUsioN]

Very cool Steve. Love those fake houses.

[@aurora.22K]

thats awesome and thoughtful too ... no expense spared - brick too ... cute. will def be turned into a crack air bnb afer they get rid of them too bad .. should be a historic protection the big Sub Stations are Gorgeous/Super cool. Yeah don't be in Alberta with the little kiddies now calling WATER ... HYDRO when referring to rental costs......

[@joywebster2678]

Had a fake house end of our street in DonMills, not as fancy frontage.

[@Bibidybobidy]

I knew about these, but, didn't know the hydro company had them built. I thought they were already first established as residential family homes. Cool.

[@86hardluck]

I drove past most of those Brimley Road houses every day for 20 years.

[@GarretClaridgeMeerkat]

really cool, I noticed one in north bay ontario, canada

[@Youngsta0]

Hydro power is still significant for our grid, 25% might not seem like much. What I was told, they use the windmills to help pump the dams capacity up.

[@williammacroberts2305]

There's one of these houses on Mill St. south of York Mills just east of Yonge, it looks like kind of an old farm house, if it's still there. It's still there in the 2021 street view.

[@TheFirefox]

There was a fake hydro house in East York that I always used to walk past. I think it was torn down and replaced with a real house about 6-7 years ago.

[@vanessap7393]

I've seen fake houses with Bell logos as well. Also I swear I've seen a TTC-related fake house along Sheppard near Bessarion

[@AK.__]

There is one fake-looking Bell house in the Yonge Eglinton, just bit west on Eglinton, before Redpath. It doesn't look like functional. The doors are too high, all very dusty.

[@joywebster2678]

The " utility " fake house in Don mills I grew up by, had the electrical, but as time went by, Bell had a large silver access post? On its front lawn, and as a community we called it the utility house vs Hydro.

[@MK-zh4jp]

640 Millwood is not in Leaside. It is in Davisville Village

[@d53101]

There was one at St.Claire and Pharmacy, but it was torn down some years ago.

[@victoriagraham6470]

Holy Hell, I'm 61 and lived in Richmond Hill for over 40 years and today May 24, 2024 I learned something new. Just saw this clip and was awestruck about the fake houses.

[@HeadlessChickenTO]

My maternal grandparent's home use to be across from a fairly large downtown substation on Huron st just south of College. The laneway right next to it is the home of the late former NDP leader Jack Layton and now mayor Olivia Chow. I use to play catch sometimes in the parking lot and lost a lot of balls that would roll under the big metal swinging doors, which probably housed the transformers.

[@Seventizz]

There's a fake house about a block from me in Mississauga, but you can tell it's used by the city for whatever. All the houses on the strip are cookie cuter and it's the only building that looks different.

[@gh0stinthec1ty]

Yonge and Eligible lol

[@dallasgrful]

I lived next to an air ventilation building for CN that was disguised as a house for a rail track underground in Burnaby, BC.

[@danvetor1365]

A lot of the substation houses have been converted. Especially in smaller cities.

[@MikeBaxterABC]

7:13 Part of my job years ago was to help set up Conventions at hotels, there was a flat rate $15 to have electrical power run to your booth (A simple 15AMP 120VAC Extension cord). .... I told one of the both owners, if you want Hydro in your both, it's $15 extra. He was from the south of USA and replied "... and 'Hydro" would be? ... LOL it's like we didn't speak the same language.

[@uncleeddie5813]

You didn't mention the location of your last stop.

[@campsitez2355]

1:52 what would be wrong with your neighbor turning their house into an air bnb exactly?

[@unrulysue6927]

Ugh. Constant stream of strangers. Never knowing if they're going to be quiet or noisy and not able to do much about it because they don't live there. People believe they can do or act however they want because they're on vacation. No thanks!

[@chewbaccarampage]

My friend use to park at that house for free parking when we went to the pub around the corner. Looks like they put a chain up on the driveway.

[@McGoogger]

Love the hydro stations. There’s another fake house in forest hill just north of kilbarry on Spadina rd

[@Bookmarkerer]

Interesting and entertaining, thanks and the best to you.

[@deedunk8383]

Great video! I learned something new. Thanks!