HouseAddict.com - Toronto's Sticker Lady....BUSTED!!!

ive been harrassed by this binbo for years. one day i was in a shitty ass mood and she came up to me & i told her off & to never come up to be again with this BS!!!

:evil:

have any of you been targeted by her?

>>>Here is the Full Story<<<

Beggar's sticky business

T.O. fixture The Sticker Lady's pitch is for causes she doesn't represent, Brodie Fenlon reports

By Brodie Fenlon

What she said to the Sun ...
Her day at the office Posh home to street corner

FOR YEARS, a Hamilton woman has commuted to Toronto where she panhandles for charitable causes she doesn't represent -- before driving home to an upscale house owned by her husband, the Toronto Sun has learned. Her name is Catherine "Katie" Hebert, 51, but she's better known as "The Sticker Lady."

She is a pleasant, smiling, soft-spoken fixture on the streets around the Eaton Centre. There, her modus operandi is legendary: She compliments strangers on their "handsome" or "pretty" looks, then distributes stickers -- or candy canes at Christmas -- in exchange for donations to a variety of causes.

CLAIM DISPUTED

Hebert vehemently denies she misrepresents herself to the public: "I've never implied that I work for a charity. All I tell people is that it's for me and my children," she said.

More than a dozen donors who spoke to the Sun near the intersection of Queen and Yonge Sts. suggest otherwise.

They say Hebert claims to collect for a wide range of charitable causes, including a "youth empowerment fund," the homeless, a children's charity, sick kids, and most recently "youth storm victims" and the tsunami relief effort -- allegations she rejects as "ridiculous" and "hearsay."

Indeed, many people are told by Hebert they are giving money to help feed her two children, although the Sun has learned one of them is 25 years old and lives on her own in Toronto.

But just as many people are told they are giving to charity:

- Kathleen Fitzjohn, 20, turned over $5 when she was approached. "She said, 'I'm collecting for a children's charity to help feed underprivileged children,' " Fitzjohn said. "I wondered if she was legitimate, but I was in a hurry." When she pulled out a $20 bill, The Sticker Lady asked her to donate it all, she said.

- Salam Idris, 20, was told by Hebert "she worked for some kids' charity." Another time, he was told the donation "was for some organization that she works for," he said. "It's not fair for the regular people who are getting hustled."

- Chris St-Onge, 19, said he was asked last week for $5 for "sick children."

- Oghomwen, 20, a Starbucks employee on Yonge St. who withheld her last name, said she was told the money was for "a youth empowerment fund."

- Randy Bleasdale, 20, another employee at Starbucks, said she had "two dozen" customers complain last week that The Sticker Lady had approached them on behalf of tsunami victims. "She'll ask people to take a sticker in exchange for a donation to (an organization) for the tsunami relief," Bleasdale said.

- An investment banker who did not want to be identified said that Hebert told him "she was collecting money for youth storm victims, and that pissed me off. I asked to see her charity number and she got all freaked out."

DECLARES THE INCOME

Hebert denies the allegations. "I don't say anything but (that it's for) me and my children. That's the plain truth," she said, noting she makes $75 on the best of days and declares all income to Revenue Canada.

"They hear what they want to hear, I think. If you listen to me plainly, I say the very same thing to everybody," she said.

Toronto Police officers on foot patrol with 52 Division said they haven't had any public complaints about The Sticker Lady.

While Hebert made no mention of it, her husband, Robert Hebert, said the panhandling is part of her 12-year-old business called "Katie's Flowers and Candies." He said his wife has registered the company with Revenue Canada, files income tax every year, and underwent a full audit three years ago.

Revenue Canada refused to confirm this, citing privacy laws.

When first asked, Hebert told the Sun she lived with her two children in a temporary residence in Toronto, but later admitted she lives in a three-storey house on Hamilton's St. Clair Blvd.

However, she maintains she rents the basement of the elegant brick home with stone facade from her husband, who purchased the property in 1988 for $289,000 with a mortgage for $215,000. Today, it's worth at least $333,000 according to the current tax assessment, though her husband says he rents space out to tenants to foot the bills.

He lives there, as does Catherine Hebert's teenaged daughter and another tenant, but the couple would not elaborate on their living arrangements. Another daughter, aged 25, lives in Toronto.

Robert Hebert, a self-described struggling musician and former head of the Hare Krishna movement in Toronto from 1971-1985, rejects any suggestion that his wife misleads the public. "She's not a liar and she's not a cheater and she's not a bad person. That's a fact."

As for her 2001 Volkswagen Jetta TDI sedan, The Sticker Lady insists she got a great deal on a lease with no money down, making it cheaper for her to commute from Hamilton than if she took GO Transit. She helped pay for the car with a paper route in 2001, Hebert said.

Hebert has been parking the car, an upgrade from her 1999 VW Golf, in a Queen's Quay lot for at least six months.

While she told attendants she was an employee at a nearby software firm, entitling her to a $20 discount off her $100 monthly parking pass, she has never worked there, the company confirmed.

Hebert is a strict vegetarian and a Hare Krishna devotee, like her husband. She wants to finish a degree in religious studies at McMaster University, where she failed her third year and hasn't been back to class in some time.

For all the effort and long days outside, Hebert says it doesn't pay well. She says she makes $75 on the very best days, although others say she's low-balling her income.

"I've seen people hand her $5 and $10 bills," said Michelle Lapointe, 19, who claimed she was approached by The Sticker Lady on behalf of a "children's charity."

More difficult to answer is why she chooses to commute, to pay for monthly parking, gas, her car lease, insurance and to spend hours on the street in all types of weather for -- if you take her word for it -- less than she could make at a minimum wage job.

"Brother, I don't know why she does what she does. That's her choice. She's her own person," husband Robert said.

"I'm just trying to get by," Hebert told the Sun. "I'm different, that's for sure."