19 Students Crammed Into Two Family Death Trap
This story makes me sick to my stomach. Unfortunately, this practice is endemic in the Allston-Brighton area as local landlords frequently exploit the countless students in the area. You can expect the City of Boston ISD to start cracking down on these slumlords big-time.
As reported today on Boston.com, the owner of the Allston two family residence on Linden Street where a Boston University student died in a fire this weekend was cited today for operating an illegal rooming house because she allegedly allowed 19 people to live in a two-family home. Landlord Anna Belokurova was also cited for failing to obtain proper permits before creating bedrooms in the basement of the building at 87 Linden St., where a three-alarm fire Sunday killed Binland Lee, a 22-year-old BU marine sciences student from Brooklyn, N.Y.
A City of Boston ordinance also says that no more than four unrelated undergraduate students are permitted to live in a dwelling, while authorities say that at least six of the 19 residents were BU students.
The city last inspected the building in 1992 when it approved a prior owner’s plan to convert a single-family home into a two-family. Those modifications included a firewall that closed the internal stairway between the first and second floors, creating a maze-like path from one story to another, interrupted by a steel door that served as a divider between the units,the Globe reported today.
A quick search on the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds indicates that Ms. Belokurova was under financial distress, as several foreclosure and condo lien proceedings were filed against her in recent years. Perhaps this is why she attempted to pack tenants in her rental property like sardines.
The code violations are going to be the least of Ms. Belokurova’s concerns as the family of the deceased student is likely readying a wrongful death lawsuit. Again, there is just no excuse for flaunting the law like this, especially given the tragic end-result.
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Richard D. Vetstein is a well-known Massachusetts landlord-tenant attorney. You can reach him via email at [email protected] or by phone at 508-620-5352.
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