There's No Place Like Home

Well readers, the thing I feared most happened. The upstairs tenant burned her apartment down with her frequent smoking after midnight. THE SAVVY SHOPPER is no place for negativity, but I happen to mention my great worry here. I've been trying to get board members and management to address the problem since the tenant moved in. No one did, and now the entire building is affected. The fire totalled her apartment; damaged the hallways of her floor and ours, as well as, other areas of the building. A resident on the 17th floor said heavy black smoke clouded up her hallway. Tenants on the floor where the fire began couldn't get out of their apartments due to flames and stepped out on their balconies thinking they were going to die. It was so hot in the hallway, the locks on front doors of adjacent apartments had to be smashed open by firemen to ensure everyone got out. Soot is everywhere. 

The entire building has major water damage; the worry of mold; walls needing replacing; the loss of cooking gas and use of our laundromat (possibly for one year). All 3 elevators stopped running, so they require repairs. The sprinkler system and smoke detectors in the hallways did not go off, slapping the building with violations from the City. It turns out the main door to enter our building was deemed by the fire department to be too heavy, yet another violation.

Word is the tenant used a hookah; and many bottles of liquor were removed from her apartment. I had to go to YouTube to learn what a hookah is. According to this video ''a typical hookah smoking session involves inhaling 100-200 times the volume of smoke of a single cigarette." Certainly, it is a fire hazard and has no place in a family dwelling, much less when smoked at ridiculous hours during times working people are asleep and venerable. So the fact the fire occurred about midnight is no surprise.

Other tenants say the fire starter's hallway always reeked of smoke, and the smell was very intense in my apartment for years (consistently after midnight; 3 am; 5 am; 6 am), the reason I desired mediation. When I spoke to one board member to get help, I was told to buy "covers" for my electric sockets. When I see this board member, should I say I'm sorry I did not buy those suggested "shields?"

Eighteen fire trucks arrived, and the Red Cross knocked on my door to check on me. Like waterfalls, water streamed down my walls in 4 areas all night long. At one point the super came to our floor, and I poked my head out in a panic because the water came down faster than it could be mopped up, flooding the floors. His puzzling response: "Debra, water doesn't run up walls ... I'm not cleaning it up for you," -- not the issue, by the way, it was pouring down too fast to be mopped up. Plus, I've never asked him to do anything beyond changing a rubber washer to stop a leaky faucet, which I ask of our handyman. Both always come up together. (A neighbor remarked, "The two are joined at the hip.") If not the super, who do you tell? In the past when a tenant on 15 flooded floors of our building, the handyman came around with a water vacuum. Not this time.

Meanwhile I'm displaced while my home is being treated by the fire restoration company. My dear readers, I thought I should tell you why it could be a while before I am back to regular blogging.

Thankfully, nobody died in the fire. Clearly, smoking, not to mention with a hookah in a high-rise, is insane!

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