FIIIIRE! (sort of)

at approximately 1:40am today, the fire alarm in my apartment building went off.

it is a deafening and shrill alarm, through which no one – no matter how sound a sleeper – could possibly sleep, and so piercing that it actually hurts your ears if they're not protected by earplugs. it is loud and, in the 4+ years i've lived here, it has never, ever gone off before (save for the annual round of testing).

i FLEWWWWW out of bed, heart pounding, and hurried to the front door. everything i'd ever learned in school about what to do in a fire came racing back into my brain. check the door – is it warm? no.

smell for smoke – is there any?

YES.

i pressed my nose to the crack around the door and could definitely smell smoke in the hallway outside. not cigarette smoke, not someone-burned-their-toast smoke, but distinct, SOMETHING IS ON FIRE smoke.

holy crap.

the alarm was still sounding, so i immediately ran back to the bedroom and got dressed. adrenaline pumping, i thought about what to grab in the event that this was a serious fire and i might not be able to get back into my apartment. this was suddenly quite scary – what if the building was really burning? what if i'd get outside and look up and see flames shooting out of someone's window? what if this was real and dangerous? i opted for my wallet and a memory stick with all my computer files on it.

as i was scrambling to put on my shoes, the alarm turned off.

i stopped. i went back to the door and sniffed – i could still smell smoke. i listened, and didn't hear any of my neighbours in the hallway. what the hell was happening?

i called the super, since i knew she'd be awake.

"hi, it's vickie."

"what happened?" said the super.

"that's why i'm calling you – the fire alarm went off and now it's stopped. do we need to leave the building???"

she said she wasn't sure, and explained that the crazy girl at the end of my hall had apparently pulled the alarm because "she smelled smoke and didn't know what to do." i told the super that i, too, could smell smoke in the hall.

"i'm coming up," she said.

but by the time i hung up, the sound of fire-engines approaching cut through the weirdly quiet night air. (honestly, i couldn't believe i was the only one awake, dressed and ready to get out.) i looked out my windows and saw two fire trucks pulling into my street, and figured i should continue what i was doing and get myself outside, just to be safe.

when i opened my apartment door, i heard the crazy girl's door open. she rushed out, locked her door and ran into the rear stairwell of the building. huh. weird. i immediately wondered if she'd, in fact, been the one to start a fire and then pull the alarm when it got out of her control. i decided to walk down the front stairs.

i got to the lobby, and the super was there was one of the firefighters.

"so, what's going on?" i asked. "is everything okay?"

"yes, it's okay now," she said, and went on to say that someone had set a piece of plywood on fire in the rear stairwell.

"was it someone on my floor?" i asked, flatly, because i knew she knew whom i meant.

"well," she said, "the fire was between your floor and the one below, and the person who pulled the alarm was from your floor."

"but is the person who started the fire from my floor?" i asked pointedly, making sure the firefighter was catching all this info.

"yes, i think it was someone from your floor," she replied.

as we stood there, i could hear a few more tenants descending the front stairs, so i went out to pass on the "all clear" news. we all stood outside for a while, kind of watching the proceedings (two fire trucks and plenty of firefighters) and watching as the crazy girl from the end of my hallway, acting like a manic nutjob, was ranting to a couple of other tenants about how she pulled the alarm because she "DIDN'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO!!!!!" i pointed her out to the others, and said she was the one who pulled the alarm.

to me, her behaviour smacked of someone who really really wanted to seem like a hero, as though telling people her side of the story over and over again (because i heard her repeat it at least twice) would somehow convince them she'd done the right thing. one of the firefighters pulled her aside to take down her info – since, you know, she was the one who pulled the alarm – and she was talking to him as if she'd just downed a dozen espressos. spelling her name like she was in the military: "bravo, andrew, richard, richard..."

after all this, only six tenants out of more than 60 bothered to come outside, which is almost as alarming as the prospect of a burning building. i couldn't believe there weren't more people outside. there were a couple of women from a few floors above me, and both of them said the smell of smoke was very strong on their floor, which is why they fled, so clearly other floors had been affected. and yet... six people? really? did everyone else just roll over and go back to sleep?

anyway, i went back to my apartment and tried to get my adrenaline levels back under control. it wasn't easy, and it took me another two hours before i'd calmed down enough to fall back asleep. my mind was racing: what had *really* happened? did the crazy girl really set something on fire? why? i'd heard her have a mini tantrum (some yelling and then a slammed door around 10:30pm), so was she pissed off and armed with matches?

most importantly, was anyone going to investigate? if it was her, and if she did try to set the building on fire, shouldn't she... you know... BE EVICTED?!

and what if she does it again?

or, if it wasn't her, what if whomever it was tries to do it again?

first thing this morning, i called my super to get the full scoop. and even i was not prepared for the crazy girl's level of crazy:

everyone – police, firefighters, building management – believes she's the one who set the fire and put it out and THEN pulled the alarm.

the super said crazy girl ran down to the super's apartment at 1:40am, after pulling the alarm, and was hysterical, saying she'd "found" a fire in the stairwell, put it out herself and THEN pulled the alarm.

the super, wisely, didn't buy a word of it. why would anyone put out a fire and THEN pull the fire alarm?, she wondered aloud to me.

then, when firefighters and, later, police arrived, crazy girl started ranting that the person who set the fire was the creep next door to me (who, while creepy, has never given off any kind of threatening, pyromaniacal vibes). the creep, who'd come outside, was floored.

too bad for crazy girl not a soul believed a word she was saying.

seems she (crazy girl) had been in an argument with the creep next door to me earlier last night (which was, i discovered, the source of the door-slamming tantrum i heard around 10:30pm) over his smoking. and, my super theorizes, this was her way of getting back at him – setting a small fire and then blaming him for it.

SHE IS INSANE.

the super said that the police detectives who arrived agreed that crazy girl was lying, and said they'd "have a talk with her." the big problem is: even though everyone knows she did it, no one has any proof she did.

there are no security cameras in the building, and no one actually saw her light a match to anything. but her history of disruptive, dramatic behaviour precedes her, and is on official record with the police (again: see: last november's wee-hour drama), and her manic behaviour during questioning last night was, despite her efforts to the contrary, a giant beacon of "IT WAS ME."

thanks to this blog, i was able to inform my super that it was on november 6th, 2010, that crazy girl was escorted out of the building by police. my super thanked me, and the info is going into crazy girl's ever-growing file with the management company.

and, you know, as much as the creep and the weirdo next door creep and weird me out, i would much rather have them living here than someone who clearly poses a very immature, very crazy, very real threat to everyone who lives in the building.