Bed and Breakfast.
Rental Units.
Manoa fire kills 2 and injures 7.
These are not new headlines in Hawaii.
Am I alone in thinking that we need to look closely at what happened in Manoa?
A dispute arose among tenants at a house that was rented to multiple families. A fire ensued. People died in thr fire. Police are investigating. Was the owner a slum lord or a person who cares? I have no doubt that the truth will come out. I do not know the truth yet.
The structure that burned today is in a very exclusive neighborhood. Manoa. Property values are high. Out of sight to most. The owner was on TV tonight. She gave the impression that she was giving reasonable rents to tenants. Reasonable as opposed to what the market would allow?
I am suspicious about what led to this tragedy.
Was the landlord making money by crowding people with forseeable issues into tight quarters? I do not know.
Stay tumed as I investigate.
And more importantly, tell me hat you think about this situation and if you know something please tell someone about what you know.
If you are concerned you shouls also read the KHON report:
"Homeowner Questions if Deadly Fire was Intentionally Set"
Ron Mizutani reports that "neighbors say they woke up to the sounds of a loud argument coming from the home and within minutes saw flames. Residents say the sound of a woman screaming echoed through the neighborhood. Residents on Mauna Place knew something was wrong as the clock approached midnight."
"There’s a lot of mystery shrouding the whole business — cause especially of the fire. Whether it was accidental arson, who knows," said Owner of the struture Fleur. Talk of arson surfaced after an argument erupted involving two tenants and her grandson who was accused of stealing a moped. "One was very angry with my grandson and one was very very very angry with me 2 because I refused to allow him to use his deposit for his last month’s rent," said Fleur. "It could be the argument that provoked the fire setting — but we don’t have any idea." Fleur says she, her daughter and granddaughter were able to escape — but two people did not. "Somebody possibly could have had a hard time getting out? Oh yeah – yeah," said former tenant Rick Smith, who lived in the home for two years before moving out eight months ago. According to city records, the homeowner was issued several violations, including one for an illegal duplex, another for doing work without a permit and most recently in September 2007 for having more than five unrelated people occupying the house with a building partition.
It took firefighters nearly 12 hours to stabilize the home before the bodies of a man and a woman were removed.
One person is still un-accounted for but after three extensive searches firefighters believe the missing man was not in the home. |
A resident of Honolulu, Hawaii, Wayne Parsons is an Injury Attorney that has dedicate his life to improving the delivery of justice to the people of his community and throughout the United States. He is driven to make sure that the wrongful, careless or negligent behavior that caused his clients' injury or loss does not happen to others.
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