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Mon 5 Nov, 2007 10:02 am
At something like 4:30 this morning my doorbell rang and there was loud pounding on the door and someone yelling.
I don't always answer my door, as nine times out of ten it is someone with a sales pitch, and, past that, the doorbell in the middle of the night is scary. Throwing caution to the wind, I answered..
it was my neighbor, telling me the house next door was on fire. I ran back and put on my jeans and grabbed my purse and coat, and found my way across the street in the pitch dark..
found the neighbor, and other neighbors. She had woken up smelling something electrical... checked the computer, various plugs, and finally the garage, where she saw flames, and tried to put it out with a bucket of water. Called the fire department..
She got her daughter up and out and the dogs out, and got her immediate neighbor out (this is a neighborhood of duplex type townhouses).
By the time I got across the street there was a wall of flame and then the first of three fire trucks pulled up.
They got the fire out (so glad there was no wind), and the damage was mostly to the garage and a bit of the kitchen, with smoke damage more widespread.
Turns out it started at the furnace, which her husband (they're living apart) had just this weekend turned on for the winter.
So in this neighborhood we all have these twenty year old furnaces...
Mine hasn't been turned on yet. I need to get it checked out!
Lesson - whatever maintenance your furnace needs, do it..........
Change your clocks, change your smoke detector batteries.
Lucky
Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey
Chim chim cher-ee!
A sweep is as lucky, as lucky can be ...
I'm sure it was scary for you, osso. So glad the fire was contained an no one was hurt. Thanks for the reminder.
If anything, I have too many smoke alarms, an old habit of mine. I do check the batteries regularly... easier in this house which has mostly lower ceilings than my last house, so no ladder needed to check them. Anyway, one of my alarms has one of those 10-year batteries, which is somewhat reassuring at this 1.5 year level.
Osso--
May disaster stay just down your street. and not come pounding on your door.
**********
Every year I write an extra check for my oil company for $100. They come out in the summer, check the furnace and then any service calls during the winter are free.
Peace of mind--worth every penny.
That must have been very scary for you too, osso.
I'm not sure, if I would answer the door if someone pounded at mine
at 4:30 am.
Luckily nothing too damaging happened, and good for your neighbor
to alert you right away.
I have my furnace checked out every year, plus it's fairly new. Hopefully,
my neighbors do the same.
That is scary. Next door might not be very far away. Glad you didn't come to grief in the dark.
Me too, me too.
I'm quite a fire scaredy cat - plus, I'm glad I didn't fall on my face getting across the street..
Mostly I feel badly for the neighbor.
She in turn was happy to have her daughter and dogs and herself safe.
She told me that she walked away freely from all her things... and that maybe now she could get herself together to do a good cleanout of saved items.
I thought it was a woman at the door, from the yelling, but it could have been a woman followed by a guy with a knife.
I didn't bring anything useful out with me, except my purse.
In reality, the guy in the unit on the other side of her was more likely to have his place burn, since the garages abut, but it could have been much different if at a different time of day on one of our gusty windy days.
Oh, osso! Are you still shaking? I would be!
Thank God for good neighbors. In so many places, the people next door might not even bother knocking.
I am glad you are okay osso. There has been altogether too much negative excitement in Albuquerque lately!
Phew, osso! Glad to hear things didn't get worse for you.
Next door is rather close for comfort!
Are you feeling OK now?
Well, I was always ok and not shaking. Ms. Cool in Distress, that's me. I didn't really believe it would get my house. So, not Ms. Cool, but Ms. Stoopid.
The door pounding (it's a painted steel layered door) kinda got to me.
Back in northern California, I used to have the doorbell ring at, say, 2 a.m.
That scared the hell out of me because it was a big house on a main street - I dunno, a little spookier. That turned out to be the older man across the alley out for his jaunt to get a bottle... he even admitted it to me once, before denying it. He went to a nursing home some time later... First thing I did was get the door bell ringer moved, because until I got it moved, it sounded like a fire station alarm in the hallway outside my bedroom.
So there's that background. Then back in LA when I was younger than now and living in a apartment over a house, someone came bounding up the stairs and pounding on the door at midnight, and I didn't answer that one. Turned out - the next day - to be a thoughtless if bright girlfriend wanting to tell her latest travails.
I'm one of those particular people who don't like people dropping by. Call first, that isn't hard!
And Hi, Tai, you must be home...
ossobuco wrote:I'm one of those particular people who don't like people dropping by. Call first, that isn't hard!
I'm the same. Especially late at night/wee small hours of the morning. Unless, of course, it's a neighbour warning me about something like a fire next door!
Glad to hear all is now back to normal, osso.
I'm also the same. I won't even drop by my family members' houses without calling first. Then again, that's mostly because no one's ever home.
Glad all is ok with you, Osso.
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