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Muskegon Heights officials condemn building with 15 residents that had no electricity

Fifteen people were living in a house that had no electricity in Muskegon Heights.
Credit: Google Maps
The residence at 309 East Hackley Avenue in Muskegon Heights. At one time it was an adult foster care center.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services condemned a building in Muskegon Heights that had 15 people living in it because it had no electricity. 

The residence is at 309 East Hackley Ave. also has been previously the subject of a court filing by the city of Muskegon Heights for illegal rental, public nuisance, property maintenance and zoning violations. 

Officials responded to a complaint about the house and found there was no electrical service operating there. Consumers Energy told city officials it was a long-term service issue that could not be fixed within a few hours. 

The residence was dark, except for candles and flashlights that were being used by the occupants. 

The Muskegon Heights Fire Chief and Chief Building Official decided to close the facility "based in part on the potential fire safety hazards and substandard living conditions created by the lack of electricity," a release said. 

On Wednesday at 6 p.m., officials went door-to-door and notified all the residents that they needed to find somewhere else to live. By 10 p.m. the owner of the building, James R. Duncan Jr., boarded up the exterior doors.

While law enforcement and city officials were notifying the residents, they noticed "numerous" additional safety and code violations. One of those was a commercial stove that was being used to heat a portion of the building. 

The area were the stove was had surface temperatures over 200 degrees 15 minutes after the stove was turned off. Additionally, the oxygen level in the basement had dropped about 0.8 percent because of the buildup of natural combustion products, mostly carbon dioxide. This equates to 4 percent—40,000 ppm—total air displacement, and carbon dioxide become a dangerous health risk at about 50,000 ppm. 

"If left unattended, there was a significant risk of injury or death due to fire or asphyxiation," the city of Muskegon Heights said in a release. 

Officials acknowledged they displaced residents from their homes just before the holidays. But they said  if they had not taken action, the results would have been tragic. The city cited the Ghost Ship Fire, which occurred on Dec. 2, 2016, where 36 people who were living in a warehouse in Oakland, Calif. died in a fire.  

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