"Walls damp, mold everywhere." What's happening in the Stalin-era buildings on Lenin Street in Minsk a month after the fire
A little over a month has passed since the major fire in Stalin-era buildings №9 and №11 on Lenin Street in Minsk. What's happening in the apartments now?
The fire broke out on the evening of June 28. The flames damaged more than 1000 square meters of the roof, and almost all apartments in the buildings were heavily flooded with water. What is the situation now? How are residents coping with the aftermath of the fire and flooding? What is happening today, writes Onliner.by.
In the stairwells, the smell of burning is still palpable — no longer as strong as immediately after the fire, but still noticeable. In addition, a damp smell has appeared. Streaks and leaks are visible everywhere on the walls and under the stairs. Wires are stretched into some apartments — probably to supply electricity to heat guns and dehumidifiers.
What do the apartments look like?
Svetlana's apartment is located in building №11 on Lenin Street. She and her ex-husband bought the spacious Stalin-era apartment 35 years ago. However, for the last month, the woman has had to live in different places: first with a friend, then with acquaintances, then in a dormitory, and now she has to move to another dormitory.
Her home is currently uninhabitable, and her property — furniture, paintings, books — is damaged.
— After the fire was extinguished, there was ankle-deep water in the apartment, — Svetlana recalls. — We thought everything would dry out and be fine. But the further it goes, the worse it gets. The house is soaked through. Do you see how thick the walls are? How can they be dried?
— We were given heat guns for free, but they helped little. Now we have to rent air dehumidifiers at our own expense. I took two — it costs 500 rubles for 10 days.
Water droplets on the ceiling. From where? Svetlana explains:
— It rained yesterday, and water is dripping from the ceiling again. My apartment has been flooded for the sixth time. A temporary roof was quickly made, but then the rains started, and water poured from the ceiling again. It turns out the money was spent in vain. Every day, the mold on the walls grows more and more.
In the interviewee's immediate plans — complete dismantling of the finish. What will happen next is still unclear.
— We hoped that we would be able to save at least something in the apartments. But there's nothing to save here. Everything is dismantled, saturated with an unpleasant smell. A lot has already been moved out of here, and I'm paying for all of it out of my own pocket. And it's not small money. The apartment is completely destroyed. We need to tear down the wallpaper, dismantle the floor. I have to hire movers, and their services are not cheap either. Can I really do all of this myself?
Tatiana Ivanovna invites us to her apartment in building №9 on Lenin Street, where she has lived since 1996. Here, you can see firsthand how a dehumidifier works.
— The dehumidifier collects water in a tank, and then it needs to be emptied. Previously, it filled up every 2-3 hours, now it takes about four hours. I turn it on, go somewhere, then come back and pour out the water. Renting a dehumidifier costs me 210 rubles a week, — the woman says. — We were given heat guns, but because of them, mold started. I've already cleaned it in one corner, but I can't reach above the cupboards — I need to buy a spray device.
Tatiana Ivanovna gives a tour of her apartment: here are the books she collected for her personal library over 50 years, here is an old carpet, pillows, clothes in the closet. All these things were soaked through and only recently dried.
— I come here from time to time, and then I go to my dacha, because it's impossible to live here — such a terrible smell. First of all, I need to put the walls in order, and only then think about what to do next. It's good that my husband once coated the floor with varnish, so it wasn't too badly damaged. I'll put the apartment in order if I have enough strength and health. Otherwise, I would sell it if a buyer could be found.
Irina shows her father's three-room apartment. A remarkable fact: a real mushroom grew directly out of the wall near the entrance door.
— Well, how else, when the walls are completely wet? — the woman comments.
— My father lives here, born in 1936. He is a second-group invalid due to musculoskeletal diseases. A man of scientific work: he started as a lecturer, then was head of the department, dean, vice-rector of the Belarusian State Economic University.
Fortunately, we have a dacha, and now my father is there. I have to ask neighbors to look after him while I'm here dealing with all the issues. But what will happen when the dacha season ends?
The woman emphasizes that the dehumidifier in the apartment works almost around the clock.
— I periodically drain a full canister. We're drying out the inside, but what about the stairwells? How can a wall dry if it's wet on the other side? It's a bit drier now, but at first, if you touched the whitewash with your finger, it was like touching sour cream.
In one of the rooms, we notice a quartz lamp. Irina found it at home and decided to try using it.
— The fan circulates the air, and with the lamp, I at least disinfect this mold a little, which appears everywhere: black, green, orange. It's impossible to breathe all these fumes — a cough starts immediately.
Irina shares her immediate plans:
— We will try to restore the apartment. We will have to completely remove not only the parquet but also the subflooring. That means we need to remove everything down to the reinforced concrete. The situation with the walls is similar. The internal partitions are made of silicate blocks — they are also wet. They will probably have to be demolished. An examination of the ceiling showed that it is brick. That's good. Many people have lath and plaster ceilings.
Alexander's apartment in building №9 on Lenin Street. His family is currently living elsewhere.
— Well, naturally. How can one live here? — the man says, pointing to the dismantled floor. — Here, we've received a defect report, now we'll tear everything down to the base. We'll need to lift the floors, knock off the plaster, expose the ceilings down to the lath. Then the rooms will need to be dried — water is still in the walls.
Otherwise, mold will grow at a frantic pace. Then we'll do repairs. Furniture and mattresses have already been thrown out. They were flooded not only with water but also with combustion products.
Alexander shares information: the apartment was insured, so the family is waiting for specialists to calculate the amount of insurance payments. He notes that the housing office (ZhES) is providing good assistance (garbage removal, work of craftsmen).
And in Igor's apartment, you can see what might generally be hidden in the floors of Stalin-era houses. The man drilled holes in the wooden beams to dry the structures faster and discovered a layer of earth, sand, stones, and chips — a technological solution of that time. And, according to residents, it is precisely this that now significantly complicates the drying of the water-logged housing.
Residents: "Our own funds are not enough to eliminate the damage"
Residents of the houses united to meet with city authorities. In addition, they described their vision for further actions to save the buildings, which are their home and a historical and cultural value for the city:
— Industrial drying of the building's structures (beams, lath, joists), apartments, stairwells, utility and other premises, as well as industrial mold treatment, is necessary. Today, the scale of fungal growth is enormous! Wood fungus clings to concrete, and if no measures are taken for drying and treatment, this will lead to the destruction of the house's structures. But this is impossible without restoring the safe operation of engineering networks. Buildings №9 and 11 have not had major renovations for a long time, and the existing aluminum wiring is not capable of providing the power for the safe use of modern equipment to dry the entire building simultaneously.
Residents of the houses are also concerned about the need to independently and endlessly clean the premises of combustion products and the consequences of flooding. In addition, they ask for measurements of air quality in the apartments to be carried out to meet established standards.
— We ask that the fire that occurred and its consequences be recognized as an emergency situation. And also to allocate state aid, subsidies to eliminate the damage due to the lack of owners' own funds, — the residents conclude.
Now reading
On Veachka Stankevich's grave, the monument has not a single word in Belarusian. This is what it says about emigrants, emigration, and the "Belarusianness of grandchildren" 123123
On Veachka Stankevich's grave, the monument has not a single word in Belarusian. This is what it says about emigrants, emigration, and the "Belarusianness of grandchildren" 123
Number of victims from explosion at a Moscow elite restaurant, during the anniversary of the general who commanded the 2022 offensive on Kyiv from Belarus, rises to five people 44
Comments
Символ российского имперского издевательства над беларусами.