Rutland family evacuated from apartment in condemned Colombian Ave. home
Firefighters in hazmat suits found rats, fleas and rotting garbage
|
|
This house on Colombian Avenue was condemned Thursday. Cassandra Hotaling / Rutland Herald |
Toolbox
By Brent Curtis
STAFF WRITER - Published: August 13, 2010
City firefighters wearing hazardous environment suits were called in to explore an apartment building that city officials decided to condemn Thursday.
The two-story white clapboard home at 200 Colombian Ave. was home to a family of seven — including five children — at the start of Thursday.
But after firefighters discovered piles of trash in the flea- and rat-infested first floor, city building inspector James Simonds said he decided the building was uninhabitable.
“We decided we needed to get the people on the second floor out for safety reasons,” he said.
The displaced family was placed in a hotel Thursday night, Simonds said, adding that the Rutland County Housing Coalition was called to help the family find more permanent lodging.
The upstairs tenants showed no signs of ill health from the noxious conditions downstairs, he said.
And the conditions were noxious, according to Simonds and firefighters who explored the first floor.
A team of plumbers called in by the building’s Keene, N.H., owners to make repairs discovered the state of affairs early in the afternoon.
Simonds said the plumbers quickly picked up on the smell coming from the apartment — an odor not of garbage but of putrescent decay.
One of the plumbers tried to enter the apartment but was driven out seconds later by the smell and by a wave of fleas, which were all over him when he emerged.
City police were called out of the belief that there was a dead human being inside — a belief that proved unfounded.
However, police didn’t enter the building because of the health risks, according to Sgt. John Sly.
City firefighter Colin Fitzsimmons, one of two firefighters who explored the apartment, said he saw bags of garbage left behind by the former tenant, fleas and signs of rats.
Fitzsimmons and the other firefighter who entered the apartment were decontaminated to kill fleas after they left the building.
Simonds said the city was trying to contact the property’s owners to secure the building. While he said the building is unfit for human habitation, Simonds said he didn’t know whether the owners would have it torn down or restored.
brent.curtis@ rutlandherald.com
18