Owners of condos in Denton say the fire that consumed their homes could have been prevented if a neighboring complex simply cleaned up their trash bins.
Pavan Kandula and three of his roommates are staying in a hotel for a third night after flames heavily damaged their two-story condo in the 900 block of West Collins Street on Tuesday.
Kandula and his roommates arrived from India less than a year ago to complete their Masters' degrees at nearby UNT.
“I lost everything. I came out of the home with my bare hands, only with my phone,” Kandula said. “We don’t know what to do next.”
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Kandula and his neighbor Paige Hammer believe they know why they lost their homes. Hammer rushed home from her job at a doctor’s office on Tuesday when she heard reports of a fire at Mesquite Ridge Townhomes.
Denton firefighters knocked down her door and rescued her two dogs. No one was injured.
“It was traumatizing for me,” Hammer said after seeing smoke and flames at the townhome she shares with her daughter and boyfriend.
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Hammer said it is made worse because most of the effort to put out the flames came from behind the fence line of her condo into a parking lot of a neighboring apartment complex.
The parking lot contained three dumpsters that Hammer and other neighbors documented in recent weeks overflowing with trash and debris.
“It was about the size of a house worth of trash,” Hammer said.
Most of the trash on the other side of their fence line burned Tuesday.
The Denton Fire Department tells NBC 5 that both the origin and cause of the fire remains under investigation as of late Thursday.
Assistant Fire Chief and Fire Marshal David Becker added in a statement what dispatched crews noticed upon arrival.
“The battalion chief arrived on scene to find the trash at 911 Bernard and a fence, separating 816 W. Collins and 911 Bernard, on fire,” Becker said.
Hammer says photos she took outside her back window earlier this month documented the large piles of trash around those three dumpsters.
The dumpsters were in the parking lot of University Place apartments at 911 Bernard Street.
A person in the leasing office for DentonStudentApartments.com, which its website says operates University Place apartments told NBC 5 on Thursday it had no comment about the fire or the large piles of trash neighbors documented leading up to the fire.
The city of Denton said a written notice of violation was sent to the property owner to address the trash issue on August 3, instructing them to clear the trash and debris by August 13.
A spokesperson for the city said a written notice of violation is only sent out after a property owner fails to abate a violation after seven days.
A community services officer for the city said they had checked the property daily since August 3 and noted the property owner was on track to have the debris cleared by August 13, according to the city of Denton. The fire occurred on August 9.
The city of Denton added it received two other complaints against the property owner in June. One of the complaints was abated by the property owner and the other complaint was closed after finding no violation, according to the city.
Hammer said she is still looking for a place to live and can not shake the sense of profound loss.
“Just sickness in my stomach because it could have been prevented,” Hammer said. “All of this could have been avoided if they would have just cleaned up the trash.”
Kandula said the UNT community has been responsive and helped provide them with hotel accommodations for one week.
An online fundraising site had already generated nearly $9000 in donations in the one day since it was started for Kandula and his roommates.
