Imagine my surprise and horror last week when I returned home from an hour of doing errands and opened the front door to have thick black smoke pour out of our apartment. The sooty air was so thick that no sunlight penetrated the 20 feet between the windows and me. I shrieked and elevatored downstairs for the building security team to come up and help. I hadn’t seen any flames and the door hadn’t been hot, so I figured something was terribly wrong with the air conditioner units, or a neighboring unit was on fire, or any fire in our own place had already gone out. But I didn’t want to go back in there by myself.
After much gesturing and repeating of ‘Help! Fire! Smoke!’ in English to little avail, a maintenance woman who spoke English wandered over and translated for me. I wouldn’t say that building security jumped into action, but they finally moseyed off their butts and came up with me. I think curiosity more than anything else was their driving motivation.
They were as confused as me by the smoke filling the ceiling of the hall*. After opening the windows to get more fresh air into the apartment we saw that it was indeed a fire, the metal and plastic lidded trashcan in the kitchen was actually still burning; its plastic bottom was oozing onto the floor in a gooey blue mess. A quick douse of water and it was out.
As the smoke cleared and my eyes stopped watering and I found a piece of sleeve to breathe through, the culprit appeared – an electrical power strip reduced to a gritty black ashen shell. The plugs to which it had been connected (washing machine and fridge) were melted shreds. The broom, dustpan and mop were charred sticks. The tile wall behind the washer was cracked and sagging. Luckily it hadn’t spread further, but fine black soot had settled onto absolutely every surface and had found its way into every drawer, cupboard and crevice.
But wait, the Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys among you ask, 2 power-hungry machines had been plugged into the same power strip? Isn’t that a little, uh, dangerous? Gosh, you’re right. But the thing is, the contractor who built out our apartment had never wired the socket for the washing machine. Rather than running another wire to the socket, the landlord and his property agent agreed that a big power strip was the easiest and best solution. Lulled by the zealous enthusiasm that American building inspectors have for finding faults with electrical wiring before issuing occupancy permits, we didn’t think twice about this overloaded power strip.
In the months since we moved in, during which time we endured several rounds of blown fuses and wiring failures in another area of the kitchen, no electrician ever bothered to fix the socket for the washer.
Here’s the kicker to all this electricity madness…just one month ago, our request for an inspection of the all the wiring in our unit was denied by the landlord. The property management company told us that he thought the electricity problems were finally fixed and it should all work fine from now on. If we had another problem, then he’d commission the inspection. Uh, can you say costly gamble?
But, but, the conscientious and eagerly helpful among you wonder, what about the neighbors or building maintenance people. Didn’t anyone notice anything? Didn’t your fire alarm going berserker alert someone to the conflagration? Alas, no…Even though the fire had occurred in the middle of the day, none of the neighbors or even the guy mopping the hall floor right in front of our apartment seemed to notice the fierce burning smell or billows of black smoke. The security people who I had rallied to my assistance really didn’t do much except get the windows open and then stand around and gawk. And smoke detectors – ha! None installed! Outside of hotel rooms, I haven’t ever seen a smoke detector installed anywhere in Malaysia. Perhaps it’s Darwinian philosophy or Karmic belief.
Luckily we were not hurt nor was any permanent damage done to our belongings, but the soot and smoke smell invaded all of our clothes, sheets, towels, dry foods, dishes, etc. So we had a mountain of stuff that needed laundering, vacuuming and washing. The rest of the 2-bedroom apartment, which had come furnished, will also need a good scrubbing and new paint, but that isn’t our concern. We are settling into another apartment a few floors away.
* Explanatory note here about the construction of our building – apartments flank a long central corridor that is open to the elements. So the hall is open to a little daylight, wind, rain, bugs and the occasional bird. It is concrete slab construction with walls made of brick and covered in a cement-like plaster. So the smoke and fire in our unit passed into the hall and out into the atmosphere without catching anything else on fire or making the hallway impassible.*
Comments
Post a Comment