Total ousted by fire now up to nine

The tenants of 8 Melba Place, next door to the apartment that burned Saturday night when a… The tenants of 8 Melba Place, next door to the apartment that burned Saturday night when a blazing couch set fire to the adjacent units, were told by their landlord Tuesday that they cannot return to their apartment, according to a former tenant of the apartment.

This brings the total of students left homeless by the fire to nine.

Sara Barlak, a former occupant of 8 Melba Place whose apartment was damaged in the fire, said her landlord, Bob Eckenrode, told her Tuesday that she and her two female roommates could not move back into the apartment, but did not specify why they could not return.

“He kind of left us without anywhere to go,” Barlak said. “He didn’t tell us until Tuesday and just said we couldn’t move back in.”

Eckenrode, the landlord for the set of row houses that encompasses 2 through 10 Melba Place, said damage to units 4, 6 and 8 was too extensive for quick restoration.

“I’m having apartments 2 and 10 [Melba Place] cleaned so the kids can at least live there,” he said. “But I have to remove the front porch, the attic, the ceilings, the walls and insulation from the middle apartments.”

Eckenrode originally said the tenants in 4 Melba Place would be able to return to the apartment, but said that when he tried to have the apartments cleaned, the smoke damage and burnt materials were beyond repair. He said the apartments will be livable again, but he estimated he would need at least four months until the restoration will be complete.

Since the fire, Barlak said she has been living with her boyfriend and has found a new apartment in South Oakland with Nicole Newcomer, also a former tenant of 8 Melba Place. She said Eckenrode is also the landlord for the new apartment.

Lisa Stephenson, the third roommate of 8 Melba Place, said she has been staying with friends since the fire but has found a new apartment in North Oakland because she will not rent from the same landlord again.

Stephenson said that when the trio first signed the lease to rent the apartment, there were no smoke detectors in the house. She said her mother called Eckenrode and told him the women would not move into the house until smoke detectors were installed. About a week later, four smoke detectors were put on the premises: one on the front wall of the upper-level bedroom that burned, one in a hallway just outside that bedroom, one on the first floor approximately 10 feet from the front door and one in the basement.

According to Stephenson, none of the smoke detectors sounded the night of the fire.

Lauren Hoffman, a former tenant of 6 Melba Place, said none of the three smoke detectors in her apartment sounded the night of the fire, either.

“There’s one right near the front door,” she said, estimating that the detector was about five feet from the fire, “there’s one upstairs outside of Jaci [Wilkinson’s] bedroom that burned and one in the basement.”

Hoffman said the batteries for the smoke detectors were replaced in September, so there’s “no reason they shouldn’t have worked.”

Eckenrode said that tenants from both 6 and 8 Melba Place signed off on forms when they moved in confirming that smoke detectors were installed and functional.

“Maybe they were so scared they never even heard [the alarms],” he said.

Hoffman said she and her two roommates from 8 Melba Place, Wilkinson and Kerri Meeks, have been living with Meeks’ family in Moon Township since the fire but plan to move back to Oakland soon. The three tenants of 4 Melba Place also have been living with friends, but will not be able to return to their apartment.

Hoffman said that her father, an employee with PECO Energy Co., located outside Philadelphia, detected gas leaks in the house when he visited Pittsburgh. She said she wasn’t sure what instrument he used to detect gas, but her father determined that there were five leaks in the house.

She said her father told her to call the landlord first, then the gas company. Hoffman said she called Eckenrode Oct. 25, the Friday before the fire, and told him about the leaks.

Eckenrode said he got the call around 1 p.m. and was at 6 Melba Place by 3 p.m., but was not convinced there was actually a gas leak.

“If the leak was that bad, the gas would have been shut off,” Eckenrode said.

Eckenrode said he didn’t acknowledge that there was a gas leak since he did not confirm it for himself, but he made plans to come back Monday to “do whatever [he] had to do.”

According to both Hoffman and Barlak, neither apartment had a fire extinguisher.

According to information posted by the Housing Resource Center, it is not mandatory for every apartment to be equipped with a fire extinguisher. Only one smoke detector is required in every apartment, and the tenant is responsible for the batteries, according to an HRC flier. The HRC confirmed that it has not received any written complaints about Eckenrode or his properties.

Eckenrode said the past few days have been very stressful for him.

“The girls all think I’m getting rich off of this,” he said, “but this has been nothing but a nightmare.”