An illegal repair shop in a garage sparked a 2 a.m. fire in a Mandy Management house Friday morning, leading the city to condemn the property and send nine families to temporary quarters in a hotel.
City Building Official Jim Turcio ordered Mandy Management to relocate at its own expense the nine families living in the house at 104 Sherman Ave. The tenants were unharmed by the fire. Turcio ordered Mandy to pull permits to make repairs throughout the structure. Tenants will move indefinitely to Econolodge on Pond Lily Avenue until the house is safe enough for them to return.
The building manager was using the repair shop to restore appliances such as fridges, stoves and washing machines for use in other apartments, said Shawn Reed, an electrical inspector with the city. To do that work, he had run a local feed from the house underground to the garage, Reed said. “It’s all illegal.”
Turcio and Reed checked the basement when they arrived Friday afternoon and realized that the wires had faulty connections to the wall, causing the electricity going through them to shoot off the wires.
“Enough where it was ready to go up in flames,” Turcio said. The basement was also “loaded with asbestos,” he said. “It was flaking right off the ceilings.”
Mandy’s principal couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. The company is one of New Haven’s largest poverty landlords. For years the city’s anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative, has been hounding the firm for years to fix up its rundown properties; at one point LCI had a task force dedicated solely to keeping after Mandy.
Friday’s condemnation follows months of stepped-up enforcement of blighted properties by Turcio and the fire marshal.
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Wanda Perez, a tenant at 104 Sherman, was watching television at 2 a.m. when she heard a lot of noise outside and looked out the window toward the backyard. She saw “firemen throwing stuff outside of the garage.”
She and her husband Alexandro Acosta moved into the building in April. They said they knew the building manager was restoring appliances in the backyard and that it was dangerous, but they never said anything.
“I never complained,” Perez said. “It was none of my business.” Neither noticed faulty wiring in their own apartment.
Acosta said he is not looking forward to moving to Econolodge Friday evening, especially since he just bought groceries for the house recently. “I think the hotel might have fridges. I’m going to save the meat to put there,” he said.
Perez said they live on little income with no family in the area to help them with housing or bills.
“I don’t feel safe,” Acosta said.