Melba Street fire possibly arson

When Kerri Meeks awoke to frantic pounding and screaming at her front door at 6 Melba Place… When Kerri Meeks awoke to frantic pounding and screaming at her front door at 6 Melba Place Saturday night, she had no idea what to expect, especially around 3:30 a.m.

She said she opened the door to see the familiar face of a neighbor silhouetted in front of a mountain of flames. Her neighbor was yelling to get out of the house, and the 21-year-old said she took one step outside and couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Right here,” Meeks said Monday, pointing to the charred sidewalk just off the front porch, “a couch was on fire. Flames were already spreading up the porch pillar and onto the roof when I went back inside.”

She said she ran inside to get her two roommates, Jaci Wilkinson and Lauren Hoffman, both of whom were asleep in their bedrooms and unaware that the exterior of their row-house apartment building was ablaze.

The three Pitt students and Wilkinson’s boyfriend all fled the apartment just as the fire swept into the electrical system and into the second-floor window – Wilkinson’s bedroom – according to Meeks. At that point, Meeks said fire and police officials arrived on the scene and disconnected the gas and electricity, then put out the fire.

Meeks said none of the home’s smoke detectors were functional when the fire occurred.

Hoffman, Meeks and Wilkinson returned to their apartment Monday afternoon to sift through their belongings and take whatever they could to Meeks’ family home in Moon Township, where they’re temporarily staying.

The women said they are convinced that they are victims of arson.

“This was deliberate, and we think we know who did it,” Hoffman said.

Their landlord, Bob Eckenrode, said he agrees the fire was set intentionally.

“It was arson,” said Eckenrode, who is also the landlord for 4 Melba Place. “I hope [the police] catch who did it.”

William Hardy, the arson detective investigating the case, is out of office until Thursday morning and could not be reached for comment. Lt. Michael Piasecki of the Zone 6 police department did not return a phone call yesterday.

But according to Meeks, this was not the first strange incident that has occurred since the three women moved in two months ago. She said there have been nights when beer bottles were thrown at the house, and one night she came home to find two couches wedged between the front door and the porch pillar, preventing her from entering and trapping Hoffman and Wilkinson inside. The police were not called for either incident.

“We barely talk to anyone on this street, so I have no idea why we’d be a target,” Meeks said.

But the police were called for an incident a few hours before the fire. Earlier Saturday night, Meeks said she saw two neighbors move the couch that was eventually on fire to the area in front of her porch. She said she went outside and warned them that she’d call the police, and then did.

Meeks said when the police arrived they told her they couldn’t do anything, but to leave the couch with the garbage for bulk pick-up.

A few hours later, the couch was ablaze.

Eckenrode said most of the damage was done to exterior walls and that there were no internal deficiencies with the apartment that added to the spreading of the flames.

But Hoffman said there were numerous problems with the gas lines in the home that had not yet been fixed.

“We were lucky,” she said.

Courtney Kaplan, a tenant in 4 Melba Place, said she awoke when she heard screaming and pounding outside and opened the door to see an explosion by the gas meter, “then the fire went right up the electrical wire.”

Kaplan’s roommate, Kate Dart, said the conjoining walls of the apartment are burned and the apartment “smells terrible.”

“We’re not allowed to move back in yet either, so we’re living with random friends for a while,” Dart said. “We’re just waiting to hear what the landlord has to say and waiting for the place to get fumigated.”

The tenants of 8 Melba Place were unavailable for comment, although Hoffman believed that their power was also turned off.

Eckenrode said Kaplan and Dart will be able to move back in eventually, but the women of 6 Melba will never be able to move back in.

“It will be two or three months until [Kaplan and Dart] can return, but the other girls can’t live there ever again,” he said.

Hoffman said when she learned Sunday evening that she would be permanently ousted from her apartment, her first concern was new housing arrangements. Her second concern was the $950 security deposit the three women paid for the house. Eckenrode would not comment on that, saying that the “the girls’ homeowners’ insurance should cover the costs.”

“This wasn’t our fault,” Hoffman said. “It’s been very frustrating. The landlord called and said he had a place for us to stay, then he called back and said he didn’t, then he called back and said he had a place on Welsford Street, but that his guys had to come and clean out this house first. It’s just frustrating.”

Meeks and Hoffman said they spent most of the afternoon on Monday making phone calls to the dean’s office asking for assistance, but so far, they have been displeased with the results.

“It’s almost as if nobody knows what to do,” Meeks said. “I don’t think they understand the extent of the damage. Fortunately, the professors have been understanding.”

Wilkinson, a 21-year-old junior whose bedroom bore the brunt of the damage, said she lost most of the possessions on shelves along the front wall and in the closet.

“All of my books, binders and clothes in the front closet were destroyed,” she said. “And we all have to get rid of our mattresses since the smell will never go away.”

On Monday afternoon, the sidewalk in front of the porch was still charred black from the burning couch, the gas meter was removed since it was broken during the fire, powerless electrical wires dangled at the side of the building, the remains of the wooden porch ceiling were charred and sooty, the upper level walls were boarded shut and Wilkinson’s bedroom could be seen through a hole in the front of the house from the street.