Tenant calls warehouse where dozens died ‘just a death trap’
OAKLAND, Calif. — Shelley Mack, a one-time tenant of the converted warehouse dubbed the “Ghost Ship,” found the rental in an ad on Facebook. She paid about $700 a month in rent, along with a security deposit of the same amount and a one-time contribution of about $700 to a fund meant to go toward improvements. She said none were ever made.
It was often freezing cold in the building. Water and power were sometimes stolen from neighbours, who would get angry and shut them off. Once, a generator blew up, and residents quickly doused the flames, she said.
Mack said she didn’t know the ramshackle dwelling was illegal until after she moved in. She was instructed to tell visitors it was a 24-hour workspace for artists. When inspectors or other outsiders came to visit, she and other residents scurried to hide clothes, bedding and other evidence anyone was living there.
“It’s a good example of people taking advantage of people because they had no other options,” said Mack. “People make businesses off scamming people online when they’re looking for a place.”
Oakland officials say at least 30 people perished when a fire ripped through the cluttered space during a dance party Friday night, and the death toll is expected to rise. It was crammed with rugs, old sofas and a garage-sale-like collection of pianos, paintings, turntables, statues and other items that quickly fed the flames.
“All kinds of electrical cords running through there illegally. Massive extension cords. Heavy musical equipment,” Mack said. “That place was just a death trap. I didn’t think it was going to last this long before it went up or somebody shut it down.”
One doorway was blocked, she said, because it led to the property of a neighbour who had been in a dispute with the operators, whom she and other former tenants and friends identified as 46-year-old Derick Ion Almena and his 40-yearold wife, Micah Allison.
Neither Almena nor Allison answered telephone calls placed to numbers associated with them.
Danielle Boudreaux said she became fast friends with the couple when they met eight years ago before a falling out about a year ago over conditions at the warehouse.
Access to the second floor — where there was a room for concerts and a home for the couple and their children — was a rickety, homemade staircase, she said.
“Calling it a staircase gives you the idea that it was a set of stairs. It was not,” Boudreaux said. “It was random pieces of wood put together to create something that you could get up to the top floor on. But it was not what most people would consider a staircase. It was like a jimmy-rigged makeshift staircase. As soon as you stepped on it, it wobbled all over the place.”