My first apartment caught fire at
Steven Aoki
124 Rancho Drive Apt. #103
San Jose, CA 95111-3419

The fire began when I gave a plumber access to my bathroom to fix calcified shower pipes. After I left for work, he blow-torched flame through the pipes to expel the calcium, causing flammable material around them to catch fire. Flames spread behind the wall and past the ceiling. The plumber fled. Neighbors in the surrounding 11 apartments evacuated. Fire fighters punched holes in our walls and rooftops to douse the flames with foam.

I returned from work to find my bathroom on the lawn, charred and decimated. Fire fighters permitted me to retrieve bare necessities before boarding up all 12 apartments. The Red Cross paid for a two-night stay at the Days Inn, and Country Hills set me up in a new apartment with temporary rental furniture. Due to potential asbestos contamination, my burnt apartment and seven others remained quarantined for one month.

Eventually I salvaged most of my ashy, smoky belongings and had them professionally cleaned. I trashed bathroom items, kitchen items, phones, mattresses, and blankets. The plumber's insurance company eventually compensated me for the wasted time and cost (including the time I wasted writing an insurance claim).

All this because I wanted high-pressured hot water.

Before	After
Before	After
Before	After
Before	After

Superstitious footnotes:

1. When I first arrived at Country Hills, the acting manager offered me a choice between Apt. 144 and Apt. 103. I turned down Apt. 144 because in Japan, the number "4" represents bad luck. The manager jokingly noted that adding the digits in "103" together equals "4".
2. When the fire broke out, the main office moved me to Apt. 237, coincidentially the same hotel room number that Hallorann warned Danny away from in "The Shining".

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Maintained by Steven Aoki, saoki@iname.com