This Toronto homeowner says a nearby laneway is overrun by rats. The problem: no one knows who owns it

A Kensington Market homeowner says she's tired of the "stampede" of rats that takes over Ellen Avenue behind her property almost nightly, and she wants the city to start cleaning up the roadway.

But there's a problem: The city says it doesn't own the property, and no one seems to know who does.

"It's filthy," said Cristina Enrietti, who owns three houses adjacent to Ellen Avenue. "There are needles, garbage lying around, rats — some during the day, but at night there's a stampede back there."

Ellen Avenue is just one of the city's so-called orphan properties — streets and laneways that have been left to deteriorate because they are more than a hundred years old and no longer have any living owner.

Coun. Dianne Saxe, right, says she's working with city staff in the hope of finding a sol