Boston Herald: Some Peabody renters displaced by fire may return

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Boston Herald

Some Peabody renters displaced by fire may return

By O’

Sunday, June 1, 2008 - Updated 1d 2h ago

Residents were slowly being allowed back into their apartments at the site

of the massive Peabody fire that razed a 26-unit apartment building, and more

will trickle in over the weekend, but scores must wait till Wednesday before

they will be allowed to return home, city officials said.

Gas and electricity are still cut off to wide parts of the acres-large

apartment community as demolition crews begin to remove the debris that was

Building 8, one of the 18 buildings in the Simpson Property Group apartment

community where 700 people were displaced following Thursday’s massive and

fast-moving wind-driven blaze.

Peabody Fire Chief Pasdon identified the cause of the fire Friday as a

discarded cigarette that ignited a pile of mulch and was fed by a gas line

into the building. The fire injured no one, but did kill a still undetermined

number of family pets.

A city official said fire again flared up at the site of the blaze yesterday,

but was extinguished. At the Highlands at Dearborn yesterday work crews

labored in the attics of several of the buildings untouched by flames to ensure

fire stops were in place between units.

Simpson Property Group is owned by Simpson Housing LLLP, which operates with

money drawn from state pension funds.

The Michigan State Employees Retirement System owns 45 percent of the

company, and the Alaska Permanent Fund owns another 45 percent, according to its

Hoover’s business profile.

The company rents some 25,000 apartments in 34 states, employs 1,200 people,

and took $317 million in profits last year, the profile said.

Simpson Property Group has paid $2.5 million in damages to its tenants since

2004, with the largest award paid to the family of an elderly Seattle woman

who was raped and killed in her Simpson Property Group-owned high-rise.

The attack occurred after the company removed shifts of security guards to

save money, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. The company settled the

case for $2 million days before it was set to go to trial, according to the

paper.

In 2006 a New Mexico jury awarded a man $562,000 when he suffered lesions on

85 percent of his body caused by toxic mold after living in a Simpson

Property Group apartment, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper. The

jury

found the company failed to remove mold from walls inside an apartment that

was prone to leaks.

ojohnson@...

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