Leonard Honeyman Photo
Disabled former soldier David Ross lived quietly with his cat, Taco, in a rundown Chapel Street apartment house. Then a multi-alarm fire destroyed his home and drove him into the street with just the clothes on his back and a camera bag.
“I was in my room working on a job,” said Ross, who’s 55 and a self-employed photographer. After hero tenant Victor Paret warned him of the fire at 1255 Chapel St., “I threw my cat out, grabbed my camera bag and went out.”
Ross has lived in the Hotel Duncan since the Sept. 3 blaze. (He’s pictured in the lobby.)
At the time of the fire, he was forced to leave behind an urn containing the ashes of his twin sister, Barbara Ross, who had special needs. He had taken care of her for six years until her death five years ago. A firefighter was able to retrieve that urn and a fireproof safe the next day. But he lost a lifetime of photos on five external hard drives and everything else he owned, including two computers, in the blaze.
Now he wants compensation for his losses. He is suing the owner of what his lawyer, Patricia Kane, called “an accident waiting to happen.” The building had no smoke detectors, had defective wiring, and there were “mattresses and other debris…piled in the front, first floor hallway,” according to suit, which was filed Friday.
City officials acknowledged that the building had fallen through the cracks of a code inspection program. (Read about that here.)
Ross is suing the executor of the Schatz estate, New Haven lawyer Ralph Marcarelli. Attorney Kane (pictured) also alleges in the suit that Marcarelli’s license to practice law is under suspension and has been since June 16. The state Judicial Branch website lists Marcarelli as under suspension since June 16 for failure to pay client security fund fee.
The suit seeks compensatory damages of $18,000, lawyer’s fees and other costs and triple damages based on an allegation that the “numerous unsafe conditions maintained on the premises by the Defendant, which caused the Plaintiff’s losses, constitute an ‘unfair or deceptive’ act or practice in the conduct of a trade or commerce.” The suit also seeks money damages for mental and emotional distress.
Among the unsafe conditions alleged in the suit are the absence of smoke detectors, defective wiring, and unsafe storage of mattresses, as well as the absence of a residential rental business license.
Because of Ross’s financial condition, the court has allowed him to file suit without paying fees that would ordinarily come close to $300.
Marcarelli did not return telephone calls seeking comment for this story.
The fire so heavily damaged the apartment house, which had been the home and fur business of civic activist Evelyn Schatz and her husband, that it had to be pulled down the next day.
Leonard Honeyman File Photo
Ross, a tall and large man who used a cane, was originally interviewed that night as he stood at Chapel and Dwight streets. He looked lost as he watched the spectacular multi-alarm fire destroy his home of five years and told the reporter he wondered where his cat was.
Today Ross lives in a tiny room in the Duncan Hotel on a less than $1,000 a month army pension for a non-service-related disability, which he said was due to back problems. He said he also suffers from two bad knees, an injured Achilles tendon and high blood pressure, he said. He now uses a single crutch to get around.
In an interview Wednesday in the hotel lobby, he said he is getting along, but wants to have his own place. He considers himself homeless even though there is a roof over his head because he has no control over his living facilities.
There is no stove in his room, which is about the size of a walk-in closet. His single bed takes up about half the room, vying for space with a tiny refrigerator and a portable television. The bathroom is across the hall.
Ross said the management of the Duncan “has been very good to me. I want that known, that they have been very good to me. Sometimes, when I don’t have the rent” when it is due, they wait for it, he said, adding that he always pays by the end of the month.
“I’m OK. I feel OK. It’s just that I’m in a rut; I can’t get away from here. I don’t have the money for it.” Leaving his former apartment “wasn’t a planned move,” he said.
His older sister, Thomasina, who lives in Olympia, Wash., gave him a laptop computer that he uses to process photos. He has an arrangement with a nearby camera store. “Because I do a lot of Photoshop work, I was able to …get some work from them. They don’t pay me, but I was able to use their equipment” in a barter arrangement, he said.
He said he was able to save some photos on a website.
The night of the fire, Kane, a New Haven lawyer and Dwight Street resident, hosted a number of fire survivors on her wraparound front porch. “She brought us up on the porch and gave us coffee,” Ross recalled. He said he had not been in touch with his former neighbors since the fire. “Everyone has scattered,” he said.
He said the house was in bad shape before the fire on a number of fronts and “there was no maintenance whatsoever.”
“There were leaks throughout the house. I could not use my kitchen. Every time it rained, it would leak onto my table.
“There were other leaks in my bedroom and in my living room [that] were from other apartments. Whenever they took a shower” in another apartment, it leaked into his apartment, Ross said. Pleas for repairs produced no results, he said.
“The lights downstairs in the common area used to flicker and spark,” he said. Toasters and microwaves could not be used together because that would trip the circuit breakers, he said. There were holes in the ceiling, missing tiles.
“They used to store extra mattresses in the common area” on the first floor, Ross said. “There were four mattresses leaning against the wall in the common area, along with bicycles and other tenants’ belongings,” Ross said.
Ross said he’s upset that the house was never inspected by the city’s Livable Cities Initiative, as required by city ordinance. “If it were inspected, it would have been cleaned up,” he said. City officials have said the building should have been inspected but due to errors, it wasn’t.
But there is a bright spot. Taco returned.
“The cat came back the next day [after the fire]. I told the firemen and the police that the cat would come back. I had three firemen and two policemen calling me about my cat. They took the cat and put him into a squad car. He went to the animal shelter, where he had his own cage. He was a celebrity,” Ross said. Although he was not charged for the care of the cat, he did leave a contribution to the shelter, Ross said proudly.
“I have since given the cat to a lovely family in West Haven,” he said. “The cat is doing better than I am. There are three young boys who love the cat.”