The nighttime peace of residents in a building on Grantha Street in Bolderāja was disrupted. Noticing a strong smell of smoke coming from the basement of the house, firefighters were called. Some residents evacuated on their own, while others needed assistance and oxygen masks, reports the program Degpunktā (TV3).
Residents blame one neighbor on the first floor for the strong smell throughout the house and a sleepless night. In the small building, he regularly becomes a headache for those around him, often showing disregard for fire safety rules, reports TV3.
"He cleaned the stove, there were coals left, and he dumped it all in the trash can. And that’s it — it caught fire. That’s how it was. And once he even set the forest on fire," said Vladimir, a resident of the second floor.
This time, the place of ignition was the basement — destroyed, flooded, and covered in soot due to a rather unusual reason. The unwanted neighbor usually lives in the apartment on the first floor, however, his relatives constantly lock it, hoping that he will find another place to live. The family conflict may be related to the man's severe alcoholism.
"He’s a drunk, the worst kind there is. He drank everything away, and then these half-relatives close the door on him. Yesterday it was closed, and he couldn’t get inside. He [lives] in the basement," said Anita, a resident of the building.
In the basement, the man occasionally goes down to sleep, and it seems that something went wrong during his attempt to rest at night. "He must have dragged some rags into the basement, as I understood. He also smoked, and probably dropped it there," says Anita.
When the smoke from the fire spread, Anita and her husband were able to escape from the first-floor apartment through the front door, while Vladimir and his family from the second floor had to wait for the firefighters — the smoke was thickest there.
When the residents evacuated at night, the most problematic neighbor was nowhere to be seen. The residents suspect that he probably started the fire and hid. Fortunately, no one was injured — including the numerous pets in the house. The living spaces, apart from the unpleasant smell, were not significantly damaged. The firefighters extinguished the fire at five in the morning.
