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Jun 15, 2006 8:59 pm US/Central
Apartments Still Empty Two Days After Safety Scare
by Mary Tan
Minneapolis (WCCO) ―
After two days without being able to sleep in their homes, residents of a New Hope apartment complex continue to stay in different places on Thursday.
Their building, the Bass Lake Apartment Complex, was emptied by safety officials on Tuesday after a carbon monoxide scare was detected and other issues were discovered with the complex.
Bernadette Super didn't want to leave her apartment, but she knew something was wrong when she saw black soot on all her furniture.
"My son came over and said 'Mom maybe you should get a carbon monoxide detector'," Super said.
When they plugged it in, it began beeping.
"When it started beeping we left, called the fire department," Super said. "Discovered it was the furnace."
The problem was in the building's water heater. The New Hope fire department immediately requested everyone out of the building.
"They had everybody leave, knocked on doors," said Super. "He said another eight hours and everybody could have been dead, they'd have been bringing us out in body bags."
The Mar-Jil Corporation owns the property. The corporation's attorney believes the City of New Hope is overreacting and that there is no danger to the health of the residents, based on what his client has told him.
"He felt that the city should not have made the tenants leave the property," said Leland Frankman, Mar-Jil's attorney, "because the only carbon dioxide was down in the area where the water heater was."
The city of New Hope says it will not give the OK for tenants to move in until everything is fixed, and city leaders are worried about mold found in some of the basement apartments.
"He keeps the property up," said Frankman. "If there has been some mold in some of the lower units, he hasn't let any tenants live there."
For now, Super will continue to live with her daughter, she wants to move as soon as possible.
"I'd like to be gone by winter, though," said Super. "I don't want to spend any longer than that there."
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