A landlord-government feud spilled onto Elm Street as a house caught on fire — and inspectors wrote three tickets for failure to clear an icy sidewalk.
The fire broke out in the basement at a three-story yellow home at 922 Elm St. mid-morning Wednesday at the corner of Hobart in the Edgewood neighborhood.
Six people were displaced during the one-alarm fire, which drew six fire units to the scene. The Red Cross took charge of finding the tenants temporary places to stay.
The fire began in the basement, where there was a pool of heating oil on the floor, according to Assistant Fire Chief Ralph Black. Firefighters plugged a hole in the furnace. It was unclear yesterday whether the hole had been there previously or if the fire caused it, Black said. The cause is under investigation. The state Department of Environmental Protection also sent someone to check out the scene.
Firefighters found flames climbing up the walls in the back hallways. Stops built in the wall prevented their rise to upper floors, as did the quick work of firefighters who knocked open walls and sprayed water.
The crew had to knock windows out throughout the house, which appeared to suffer extensive smoke damage.
While firefighters worked, landlord Anthia Christian (pictured at the top of this story) stood on the Elm Street sidewalk watching. She was joined by an inspector from New Haven government’s Livable City Initiative (LCI), who asked to go inside. LCI had previously cited Christian for allegedly having an illegal third-floor apartment in a building zoned for two families.
LCI and the 38-year-old Orange resident have been feuding over warnings and citations and complaints from neighbors over the past one and a half years, since the Orange resident began buying up city homes.
“I own 21 properties in New Haven,” she said. “I just paid almost $100,000 in property taxes. It feels like I’m paying people to harass me. It could be my race. It could be my sex. But they do it constantly.”
Christian refused to let the LCI inspector inside. By her own account, she started yelling at him to get off her property. “I stood up for myself,” she said.
The inspector called for reinforcements. Two other LCI inspectors showed up, Elaine Braffman and Rafael Ramos. Both have cited Christian repeatedly for offenses ranging from unplanted grass to the allegedly illegal apartment. Cops showed up too.
That angered Christian. Especially when the LCI crew wrote her three tickets for the ice on the sidewalks in front of the three contiguous properties she owns there. Ramos too asked to see the third floor.
“I said, ‘No! I’m dealing with a fire and an oil spill and homeless tenants. You can deal with this another time.”
“They should have had more substantive things [to approach landlords about] than ‘plant grass,” she fumed later on after the inspectors left. “You have a fire, and LCI shows up to cite you for [sidewalks] in the worst winter in 25 years! I think I am going to sue them.”
Rafael Ramos said he and the other inspectors showed up because the fire department called them. Firefighters discovered padlocks on bedrooms on the third floor. He called that “unsafe” and “illegal.”
He noted that LCI had previously cited her for having an apartment without permission on that third floor.
Christian told the Independent that it’s not a third-floor “apartment.” She said “friends” who are “students” sometimes crash there, but she doesn’t charge them rent. They’re not “tenants,” she emphasized.
“She can’t do that,” Ramos said later. “She doesn’t have a certificate of occupancy. I don’t care if it’s friends or rental.”
About That Ice
Firefighters hadn’t finished mopping up the operation when he arrived, Ramos said, so he and his colleagues remained on the sidewalk. Precariously.
“We noticed we were standing on ice! The next two houses down are all hers. We didn’t write her a ticket. We wrote her warnings.
“We’ll be back in 24 hours. If it’s not clean, we’ll give her a citation.”
Christian insisted that has the sidewalks regularly cleared. “There was a snowstorm, and there was rain. It’s impossible to get that stuff up. We’ve been sanding and salting every day.”
About That Grass Seed
Ramos explained the repeated warnings about Christian’s failure to plant grass seed.
“She has bare dirt patches in front of her house. It’s unsightly,” he said. “And it’s a health concern for young children. A lot the lead that leaks off a property leaches into the ground. We can assume that any house built prior to 1978 may contain on the exterior of the house some lead.”
He also worries about soil erosion, he said. That leads to cracked sidewalks, and kids tripping.
Christian insisted LCI is harassing her with minor problems because of a personal vendetta. “I own these houses, and I’m not Jewish,” she said. Or maybe she’s being targeted for being black, or a woman, or living “10 minutes away” in Orange, she suggested.
“We don’t go looking for stuff. We get calls,” Ramos responded. He stressed that the department has no grudge against Christian. “For her it’s always a personal matter. It’s not for us. It’s routine work. We’re concerned with the health and safety of the public.”
I trust Elaine and Rafael over this lady. So a black guy and a woman are discriminating against her because she is a black woman?
How about she maintain her properties. If they found padlocks on apartments in her house, she should go to jail.
This is the scary part of the economic collapse. Predators like this lady will buy up houses cheap and it will take years for the city to clean them out.
Being a slumlord is not protected by the Constitution!!