Social media accounts help apartment fire victims

(Updated) The Fire Marshal’s Office has concluded that the blaze that destroyed a heritage building on Bold Street last week started in the boiler room, and was accidental.

Now the building owner is waiting to find out if any of the 100 year old structure can be saved, and the former tenants of the 17 units are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Even after surviving the disastrous fire, the thick, suffocating smoke, and four days in the charred remains of one of Hamilton’s oldest apartment buildings, the gerbil seemed chipper shortly after property restoration workers pulled him to safety.

Other Pasadena residents have been reunited with their pets in the days following Friday’s fire, including Karen Adams’ neighbour and her cat.

“It made me bawl my eyes out, I was so happy for her. She was on the second floor; I don’t know how that cat could have been there on Sunday.”

“It was all fallen in. You could see the sky through the second floor.”

Adams was not so lucky with news of her beloved cat, Stinky. Investigators found him lifeless in a bedroom. Her husband may be allowed to collect his remains in the next few days, according to the Pasadena property managers, who have been calling every day to offer help, and update former residents.

“I have a set of golf clubs you can see, they look like they could be salvageable. but who cares about that stuff anyway.”

Friends and family are donating what they can, and she feels lucky.

“My boss is saying, ‘I have a curling iron and a blow dryer.’ Things you don’t realize you need, but I do.”

A Facebook group and a Twitter account have been set up for the residents of 27 Bold to coordinate donations and connect former residents. There are also sites lamenting the loss of beautiful architecture.

“That was the thing. When I first saw it I wanted to live there right away.”

Starting tomorrow, full time fire stations in Hamilton will start collecting non-perishable food only for the victims.