In the "what else could possibly go wrong?" dep't:
My friend and temp-flatmate John dropped at the house last Thursday on the way in to work so I could have a chat w/the builders. "Oh look", I said, "the windows are all open. They must be painting or using solvents or something."
Walking toward the house I saw my neighbor Julie, who hurried over to talk to me.
"Erm, did you hear about the fire?"
(me, eyes widening) "What fire?"
Apparently Julie, her husband Mark and her sister Janette were sitting on their porch the previous evening when the saw tall flames across the street in our living room! They ran across and started looking for a hose, while Janette, who (as it happens) is a Seattle firefighter, kicked in the front door to get to the flames while Mark arrived with a hose and started dousing the fire.
Meanwhile, Bob the plumber, who had been working down in the basement the entire time, heard the commotion and ran upstairs to where the fire and ensuing frenzy.
"Who are you?" demanded Janette, thinking he was an arsonist. When he started to clean up the mess with his shop vacuum, she demanded that he stop saying it was a crime scene and that the Seattle Fire Dep't. was on the way, as more neighbors and our builders (whom Bob had called) showed up on the site. Every one but me, as it happens, as I had turned off my phone for the evening and was enjoying a glass of wine and a chat up the street @ John and Jacki's place while all of this took place.... I didn't find out until the next morning.
-- Anyway --
As it turned out, the fire had been caused by a worker who had been oiling window trim with linseed oil. If you've ever worked with the stuff before, you've probably seen the warnings that you need to store oiled rags with linseed in an airtight container or a bucket of water as they can spontaneously combust (I've felt them get warm but never seen them catch fire). Well one of the workers through the linseed oil rags into a trash bin in the middle of the living room floor and sure enough they caught fire a few hours later.
We were super lucky. Aside from a lot of smoke and some damaged flooring where the trash bin had melted, and the broken door jamb where Janette had kicked it in, everything was fine. A few more minutes of burning, or if the fire started without anyone noticing a few hours later, the whole place could have gone up in flames. And god knows what could have happened to Bob the plumber in the basement if he'd become trapped in the basement with gas lines etc. around him and no easy escape.
I have some great neighbors. But no more housewarming presents thanks. This one was a tad too literal for my taste.
