The fire that killed 9-year-old Taylor McQueeney on Monday morning in downtown Lewiston was a tragic accident. In sobering hindsight, there were plenty of precautions that could have been taken, chief among them simply extinguishing the candle that sparked the blaze.
Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
A Lewiston firefighter investigates a fire that destroyed a third-floor apartment at 52 River Street in Lewiston on Monday.
That's where the blame lies.
This hasn't silenced concerns about the relationship between landlords and tenants when it comes to electricity. The fire on River Street was the second in a week in Lewiston with the same sad M.O.: disconnected electricity, lit candles, ignorance or obliviousness.
Landlords complain that they're not notified when their tenants are shut off. This is somewhat true; customer records of utility companies are held close by privacy laws. Yet mechanisms in the law do exist to allow landlords to be told of disconnections, if they get their tenants' written consent.
Observers are seeing a spike in disconnections in local apartments, a trait that's being attributed to the recession. The two fires in Lewiston are observational proof that people are electing to go without power, rather than try to have it restored. This is a bad situation now, which will only grow worse.
And it's entirely preventable.
First off, the state has programs available to avoid electrical disconnections. The Maine Public Utilities Commission maintains a $7 million fund to help low-income utility customers with their bills; losing service should be the absolute last resort. For more on that program, call 1-800-452-4699.
Next, there are great inequities between landlords and tenants regarding disconnections. Voluntary terminations of electricity service are reported to landlords, for instance. Involuntary terminations, though, are not. This doesn't seem to make much sense.
Nor does this: If a landlord pays for electricity and faces a disconnection, their tenants must be notified and given the chance to put the service in their name. The opposite is true when tenants lose service, as landlords can literally be kept in the dark.
Yet there is nothing stopping landlords from requesting their tenants' consent to be notified if they're disconnected, have unpaid balances, or if hazards to service arise; in fact, we'd suggest landlords should insist on it, purely to protect their property from accidents or decline.
A lease or rental agreement has many binding clauses; empowering your landlord to know if you've had your power shut off seems smart to be one of them. (And legal, too.)
PUC officials say this is the first time in memory that questions have arisen about the landlord-tenant utility relationship, which is tragic, since it's taken the death of an innocent child to start asking them.
It's clear, though, that both landlords and tenants have power to remedy these situations. Nothing can bring back Taylor McQueeney, but officials, utility companies, landlords and tenants can ensure the conditions that led to her death are not repeated anytime soon.
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I would have to disagree
I would have to disagree with letting the landlord know. You never know what might be going on in a household, with children, and the power gets cut off. There are unscrupulous landlords who would evict these families even though their past record would not warrant this. What if it was a single mother or father with small children that lost their job? Unemployment does not pay you what you previously earned on a job and for those that are living on the edge that cut in pay sends them over the cliff. You cannot depend on services that are supposed to be available to help these families, it does not always work. People often burn candles for the ambiance and a fire could start just as easily from that. I wish the answers were simple for all involved, the truth of the matter is that they are not. You have so many people that bleed the system because they are too lazy to work, or have criminal records that prevent them from getting decent paying jobs so that when it comes time for those who are truly in need the funding simply is not available. Yes, CMP is willing to work with you to avoid being cut off, that is fact. However, once you fall behind on bills, a cause that may not be your fault, it is increasingly difficult to catch up. By the time you get a cut-off notice it is often 3 months or more late so you have to pay the payment plan plus the current electric bill....difficult at best. It would be best to call CMP the first month before it gets out of hand. Notifying certain landlords puts these people at risk of eviction..period. This is not a good outcome for anyone. In the case of Taylor the larger question still looms in my mind...why did the mother of this child not know she was there until the fire department came knocking? It is not the fault of CMP for cutting off the power, how can it be?
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Why was Taylor the only one
Why was Taylor the only one that didn't get out?
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.I don't burn candles in fear
I don't burn candles in fear that a fire could be started. They say you should keep candles 3' away from other objects. When I lost power just last week-I never left my candles unattended. Accidents happen every day out of lack of knowledge or feeling of desperation... but when it comes down to energy-I simply think it shouldn't be happening.
If landlords are so concerned and want to ensure SOME safety of their tenants-maybe a great idea would be to include electricity in the rent payment. If that means they have to result in an increase in the rent, so be it. It seems to have worked very well for tenants and CMP that rent and electricity is included.
My experience with CMP-its more than impossible to get them to have worked with me in the past, no matter how long, how well I had kept up payment during very trying times. It was even more impossible to get help from kind of temporary program in my time of need. There needs to be a better program from the State and CMP. We need to have CMP willing be able to work with all customers during the winter and the summer months. WHATEVER PROGRAM THEY HAVE NOW IS NOT WORKING AND NEEDS TO BE IMPROVED ALONG WITH THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE! We don't have another choice or option. It's CMP or nothing!
The facts are stuff happens. Events happen. It saddens me that people result in the way of thinking that they do and write the comments that they do to bash people, end up talking about politics, demeaning people, assume, stereotype... I could go on and on. NOT everyone in downtown is on Section 8 or getting help from the State. NOT everyone is a drug addict or alcoholic or smoker... It's easy for some to say things and generalize the whole population. We don't know what our neighbors been through. We don't live their lives. All I know is that us as humans-as PEOPLE have been or will be going through similar situations in our lives that make us feel the same emotions or will experience similar events... So for those many-get off your high horse and have some sympathy and compassion for the topic at hand-the real tragic issue here! Or don't bother to say anything at all!
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Nancy, the account is
Nancy, the account is private. It may be an inactive account but it is still an account.
Robert, Well said.
Mom, thanks for sharing your experience. It is good to know that things can be worked out. I hope your situation is better now.
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"No one is rich enough to do without a neighbor." ~ Danish Proverb
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Will someone please explain
Will someone please explain to me how a person who is NOT a CMP customer (due to having their power shut off) is covered by any kind of customer privacy law?? I just don't get that part. Last I knew, if you aren't receiving a service you AREN'T a customer. Maybe CMP means they have ex-customer privacy laws, which is just silly.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.We don't know what
We don't know what circumstances caused the power to be turned off other than non payment. We don't know what steps the renter took to work with CMP if any. We don't know whether the tenant is on any type of state or federal aid. We don't know that the tenance smoked or drank Allen's Coffee Brandy. All we know is a terrible tragedy occurred, most likely due to a burning candle. Lets let the investigators figure out the rest before we jump to conclusions.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Ok in no way should the
Ok in no way should the lanlord have to put the electricity back in their name cause a tenant doesnt pay their bill. Most of the tenants down town are on public assistance and have Section 8 so why cant they pay their electricity??? Get a job and take responsibility for your bills instead of letting the government support you. All 3 of those men are young enough and I'm sure capable to work.
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Ok in no way should the lanlord have to put the electricity back in their name cause a tenant doesnt pay their bill. Most of the tenants down town are on public assistance and have Section 8 so why cant they pay their electricity??? Get a job and take responsibility for your bills instead of letting the government support you. All 3 of those men are young enough and I'm sure capable to work.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Ok in no way should the
Ok in no way should the lanlord have to put the electricity back in their name cause a tenant doesnt pay their bill. Most of the tenants down town are on public assistance and have Section 8 so why cant they pay their electricity??? Get a job and take responsibility for your bills instead of letting the government support you. All 3 of those men are young enough and I'm sure capable to work.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.This could have all been
This could have all been avoided by simply picking up the phone and calling CMP and explaining the situation. Last fall my husband lost his job didn't take long to go through our savings by mid winter we were struggling to feed the kids pay the mort etc. We got our first disconnect notice from CMP I called them and they were WONDERFUL. I explained what happed and they set us up on a plan that we could afford that would keep the lights on. Yes it was swallowing the pride but it was either that or have my kids go cold. When I see stories like this it makes me so sad one simple phone call could have saved a little girls life and kept so many people in their homes.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Maybe if these people quit
Maybe if these people quit smoking cigs and quit the Allen's brandy and paid their bills they wouldn't lose their electricity. I am so sick of people saying that they are broke and poor but can afford to smoke and drink and not take care of responsibilites like bills and taking care of their children. It is all over the place especially in Maine.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Things that are done without
Things that are done without the need of a human remembering to do something work the best. In the case of when a tenant calls up cmp and says "hey, disconnect me" landlords can have it set up with cmp to have the account automatically transfer back to them and cmp sends the landlord a notice. WHY can't cmp do this when it's a non payment cause???.....if CMP simply did NOT state in the notice to landlord why on a certain date the account would be transfered to them....cmp would not be breaking any of the "oh so important" privacy laws!
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