Since the academic year commenced in September, there have been three fires in students' homes in the University Heights. The latest one, which forced Allen Curry, Stefan Dosch, Brandon Nowak and David Lafferty out of their home at 63 Montrose Ave., will need a lawsuit to be resolved.
At around 4 p.m. on Jan. 9, Lafferty, a sophomore biomedical sciences major, was getting ready to head to his job as an EMT when one of his roommates raised an important question.
"As I'm walking out of the house, our other roommate Jake asked me if I thought I smelled smoke, so we walked into his room and there was smoke pouring out of his window pane," Lafferty said. "I turned around to go back into the kitchen and there was smoke pouring out of our sink, so we got out of the house and we called the fire department."
Shortly after evacuating their home, the fire department showed up and quickly got to work. They put out the fire, but everything had been destroyed. Firefighters had to rip out walls on both floors, everything was soaked from the extinguisher spray, and the entire house smelled like smoke, according to Nowak.
Fire Marshal Kevin Lozano determined that it was an electrical fire, according to Nowak, Lafferty, and their property manager.
"It started in the wall, and, unless you were putting fireworks in the walls, the fire wouldn't have started any other way," Lafferty said. "It was clearly an electrical fire, which [Lozano] also told our landlords. The crazy part is that our landlords told him to [expletive] off."
Nowak and Lafferty rent from BRoS Properties, a 15-year old company run by Brad Engel and Russ Hiltermann. Engel and Hiltermann do not live in the Buffalo area; however, Brad's brother Shawn does, and he is responsible for "complet[ing] apartment ?showings, lease signings, maintenance repairs and…work order ?requests," according to the company's website, bufapt.com.
Although both parties agree that it was an electrical fire, each places the blame on the other.
The tenants of 63 Montrose claim that they started experiencing electricity problems back in July when they noticed that their circuit breakers frequently went out, making it impossible to vacuum, do laundry, and cook food. They e-mailed BRoS Properties explaining the problem, and Hiltermann sent a worker over to repair the issue.
It was only a quick fix, however, and the roommates continued to have problems with their electricity, according to Nowak and Lafferty.
"[BRoS Properties] claimed that they had fixed the problem, but from that point on all of our breakers would go really easily. We'd turn on the microwave and the breakers would go, we'd turn on a coffee maker and the breakers would go," Lafferty said. "We have been e-mailing them up until two weeks before the fire telling them about this and they never did anything about it."
Lafferty has a string of e-mails sent to BRoS Properties that began on Nov. 27, 2010 indicating different problems he and his roommates faced. Issues ranged from defective appliances to broken windows, with the greatest concern being the house's "serious electrical problems."
Shawn Engel, the property manager, however, disagrees. He stated that the house did not have electrical problems and claimed that the fire was caused by the misuse of electrical appliances.
"The fire started inside the cavity of the wall," Shawn Engel said. "It was due to an overload of the circuit based on misusage of electricity.…It's a very dangerous situation when you intentionally turn your heat off and try to heat your apartment using space heaters….That was the cause of the fire based on what the fire marshal has told us."
Lozano, the fire marshal, was unavailable for comment, but Nowak refuted Shawn Engel's claim, stating that he and his roommates had cut down on their electrical use after they received a high electric bill.
After the fire, Nowak, Lafferty, and the rest of their roommates were forced to move out of 63 Montrose because the home was inhabitable. Nowak stayed with a friend and just recently found a studio apartment near Elmwood, and Lafferty moved back in with his parents in Lancaster, N.Y. Living back home has produced a problem for Nowak, who used to take the bus to campus.
"One reason why I moved to South Campus was because I don't have a car…Montrose was perfect because I work at Sister's Hospital so I could just walk three miles to work. I would also walk less than a mile to campus," said Nowak, a junior mechanical and aerospace engineering major. "Now that the house burnt down and the landlords haven't given us any money, I'm living at my parents' house and I have to depend on rides to get to class."
The tenants said that BRoS Properties didn't do much to help them out after the fire, but, again, Shawn Engel claimed otherwise.
"We did have another unit that was available for them for the second semester because somebody had just signed it for the first semester," Shawn Engel said. "Originally, they said they did want to move their things and we had offered a number of other things for them: help and assistance to replace some of the things lost due to the fire. There wasn't too much damage to personal belongings; just a couple of beds, I believe. We offered to buy them a couple of beds and to help them move, to which they initially said ‘Yes, certainly.' Then they declined."
Both Nowak and Lafferty stated that the university reached out to them after the fire to find out how they were doing, however, there wasn't much else that it could do to help. The roommates contacted Sub Board Legal Assistance, which provided them with information on what to do next.
In order to gain restitution, the tenants will have to file a lawsuit to prove that the landlords were negligent since the tenants don't have renters insurance, and since the owner's insurance doesn't cover the tenants' belongings.
The roommates would like to have their security deposits refunded, any prepaid rent returned, the lawyer fee reimbursed, and compensation given for lost belongings. BRoS Properties had its lawyer, Michael R. Wyszynski, send each tenant a letter that explained that they should vacate the house and remove their personal belongings so repairs can be made.
It also stated: "Once all personal property has been removed, and the source of the fire determined, my clients will contact you, regarding reimbursement for the security deposit and prepaid rent."
Dan Ryan, director of off campus student relations, stated that many of the homes in the University Heights do not meet building codes. However, also mentioned that students tend to bring in "a lot of electronic devices…which can cause fires."
Nowak and Lafferty recognize that the situation could have been worse and they're thankful that no one was injured. They also contemplated what would have happened had the fire started at 4 a.m., and not 4 p.m. Still, since this is the third fire in the area in less than half a year, they feel it is important to inform other students to closely monitor their electricity.
"We've noticed that this is more of a widespread issue. A house burnt down on Merrimac and there was another fire on Custer," Nowak said. "Three fires in one year? Something is going on here."
Have you experienced a problem while living off campus? If so, let The Spectrum know.
E-mail: news@ubspectrum.com
