[4854] in Depressing_Thoughts
Blizzard, flood, fire, flood, codemnation.
marthag@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (marthag@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Jan 11 01:09:14 1996
Ok, it all started very simply. I went home for a few days, and I was
supposed to fly back to Boston on Sunday. Then there was this blizzard
coming, so I got a ride up from Maryland to Cambridge with a friend. We
drove all night Saturday night, and then when I woke up on Sunday around
1pm, I wanted to take a shower. Simple enough, right. Well, I couldn't
take a shower, because the bathtub drain was frozen. I thought it might
be just be the catch that was frozen (we had the heat up all the way),
so I tried pouring hot water down the drain. No such luck, there was
more ice down the pipe. At about 3pm, a water main for the building,
which was in the wall between my apartment (1-C) and the one next door
(1-D), burst and flooded the entire first floor. Almost my entire
apartment was under 4 inches of water.
It turns out that the so-called building manager, who supposedly lived
in 1-D, didn't have any heat or electricity in his apartment, which is
why the pipes froze. He was stealing electricity from the building,
letting someone else live there, and according to another resident,
drunk all the time. Also, neither he nor the landlord was available
until much later in the day.
So, someone called the fire department, and they and the police came and
broke down the door to 1-D, where water was gushing out of the wall next
to mine, and then went outside and broke down the door to the
telephone/water room, and shut off the water for the whole building. We
had also called the Department of Public Works, but they showed up after
the fire department.
After a few hours (this was during the blizzard), I got a plumber to
come out, but he couldn't do anything until the pipes were thawed. Then
the slum^H^H^H^Hlandlord showed up and said that he'd get someone to
come in and clean up the next day, and I went to stay in Marc's spare
bedroom. Monday, I was snowed in there. Tuesday afternoon, I went back
to my apartment. All the standing water was gone, but the carpet was
still soaked and the apartment was filthy from the water, and the
bathtub drain was still frozen. So, I called the landlord, who said he
would get someone to clean up the apartment and and thaw the pipe. I
also called the Cambridge legal folk, and they told me to get a
Cambridge Inspector, and I arranged for him come out on Wednesday. I
also spoke to my roommate, who had been stuck in New York since the
weekend, and told her what happened. I then heard her use words I've
never heard her use before.
Today, Sarah (my roommate), went to the apartment and watched the
landlord and his helper try to dry the carpet and thaw the pipe. They
put a kerosene heater in her closet to thaw the pipe, and set fire to
the building.
It was a two-alarm fire, and went up all the way to the fourth floor. I
arrived back at my building to meet the Cambridge Inspector, and he
handed me a form that said "Apt. condemmed due to fire", (see
http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/marthag/condemn.gif). Most of the damage
was due to the water (about 4 inches on the floor, again) that they used
to put out the fire (which they started while trying to clean up from
the first flood), although we are currently missing a ceiling and a
wall. I spent the day in ankle-deep water and the snow and ice outside,
trying to get everything that I can't live without out of my former
apartment, while lots of {plumbing, electrical, buildling, etc.}
inspectors, firemen, insurance adjustors, plumbers, electricians,
locksmiths, and Red Cross folk wandered in and out. When the Red Cross
gives you a disaster relief package, you know you've had a bad day.
On the good side, no people (or cats) were hurt, and most of the damage
was structural, not to our stuff. On the bad side, my apartment won't
be liveable for a month or two (Sarah and I are probably just going to
find a new one to move to).
