A fire at a home in Stony Brook on Long Island has exposed what town officials are calling a potential death trap, a house quietly packed with far more people than it was ever built to hold. Investigators say a four-bedroom home had been illegally converted into 10 bedrooms with 12 people living inside, most of them students at nearby Stony Brook University.
Prosecutors said in court that 12 mattresses were found inside the home on Salem Drive, and that the number of tenants could have been even higher during the school year. The house was described as bursting at the seams with students, a four-bedroom home carved up into a 10-bedroom rental where young people were crammed into every available space.
The conditions inside were what alarmed officials the most. Investigators said students were living with deadbolt locks on their bedroom doors, a lack of proper egress, unapproved sleeping areas and a home that did not have the correct number of smoke detectors, a combination of hazards that could have trapped residents if they needed to escape in an emergency.
The dangers came to light after a fire broke out last month, an incident that sparked an investigation into the property. Officials said the blaze began in a bathroom and traveled into the walls of the house. No one was injured in the fire, but the home was deemed unsafe and has since been condemned, meaning the tenants can no longer live there.
The two landlords who own the home were arraigned and pleaded not guilty to 30 charges tied to the conditions inside. They now face up to 90 days in jail and fines of up to 256,000 dollars. Students who lived in the home told investigators they had each been paying around 750 dollars to stay in what officials described as a death trap.
The case has drawn attention to overcrowded student housing in the area. A neighbor said she had complained to the town about the house and others like it even before the fire, saying the crush of college tenants was hurting the quality of life on the block. Officials warned that some landlords will exploit lower-income tenants, in this case students, by packing them into unsafe homes.