Plan to head south up in smoke
One week after a fire tore through her Newtown flat destroying nearly everything she owns, Anna Wilkes feels frozen in time.
‘‘It’s hard to process life changing that fast,’’ she said.
Wilkes and her three flatmates are unable to go back into their Hanson St flat, which is now uninhabitable, following the fire, which started in a neighbouring derelict property.
Almost all their belongings are smoke and water damaged, meaning those things that were salvageable fit into a single plastic bag. Wilkes was left with ‘‘a watery laptop, a pounamu and some smoky photos’’.
Wilkes, who said she’d been able to sleep only one full night since the fire, said it had reminded her of living through the Christchurch earthquakes.
‘‘Obviously the whole city hasn’t gone through what you’ve gone through, but that trauma feeling of not being able to sleep, not eating, just feeling completely disoriented,’’ she said. ‘‘Everyone is processing it differently. It is pretty traumatic,’’ she said.
The former social worker had recently quit her job and had planned to move out of the flat the day after the fire, to travel around the South Island. The day after that was her birthday. ‘‘It’s kind of ironic really,’’ she said.
On the night of the fire, Wilkes had been showering when she heard her flatmate screaming there was a fire.
She grabbed her handbag and ran out of the house, wearing only her pyjamas and dressing gown.
‘‘I ran down the stairs to see the house next door really lighting up,’’ she said.
With only metres between the houses, Wilkes remembers thinking it was highly likely their home would go up in flames too.
‘‘I decided I didn’t want to watch it,’’ she said. The flatmates went to a nearby friend’s house.
But she’s pleased everyone in the flat managed to have some belongings saved. ‘‘Everyone had stuff they loved that they lost,’’ she said.
A Givealittle page has raised nearly $5000 for the tenants.
A police spokeswoman said the fire, which was initially deemed suspicious but now confirmed to be accidental, remains under investigation.
CCTV footage showed two people leaving the derelict property in the moments before the fire started.
Bill Guthrie, who owns the property where Wilkes lived, said he had first complained to the council about the neighbouring derelict property, which he called ‘‘high risk’’, about 10 years ago.
Wellington City Council spokesman Richard MacLean said council staff had dealt with complaints about the property and attempted to locate and deal with the owner on numerous occasions.
A council public health officer had been scheduled to visit the property the day after the fire and had previously visited twice this year.
However, MacLean said the property didn’t meet the threshold for the council’s ‘dangerous and insanitary’ building list.
Wilkes described the situation as ‘‘frustrating and pretty devastating’’.
‘‘I guess it’s hard for everyone, especially when we have lost so much . . . I don’t really know who is at fault, but it seems like it could have been done better. It’s a sad situation,’’ she said.
Two other fires last week, one in Mt Victoria on Wednesday evening and one in Lyall Bay on Friday morning, are being treated as arson. A police spokeswoman said there was no evidence at this stage to suggest the fires were linked to the Hanson St blaze.
‘‘ It is pretty traumatic. Everyone had stuff they loved that they lost.’’
Anna Wilkes