I have these 2 adorable Puggles, Honey and Amber there Beagle and Pug Mix and they kind of just do not like to catch and chase a ball like normal dogs they just drop it and leave it sitting there despite my wife doing her best to teach them . With this in mind that's exactly what recently happened when it came to our At Risk children in a County by me when they where moved into a group home with an old outdated non reporting fire alarm and major plumbing and electrical code violations .Luckily at last minute they did not move in when they realized the fire alarm was not reporting. But they are in there now and none of the electrical or plumbing issues have been addressed.
Yet the state Dept. of Public Welfare (DPW ) inspector which governs these facility's and the City s Building and Fire Inspectors where supposedly all thru the home and approved occupancy.There's a permit hanging on the wall that everything is in good order.
So how was this allowed to happen? Good question.
This particular program for kids has seen the days when they had enough kids to support a campus dwindle down to a small handful of in house residence kids,because all the funding from federal ,state and county sources has been cut . So they started looking for group homes they could move the kids to. They found 2 existing group homes which where used previously as Personnel Care Homes and had been sitting empty since 2009 which was a good choice but these homes where never kept up to health and safety codes and have numerous pages full of electrical and plumbing code red tag violations none of which any of the state,county or city inspectors ever caught or made mention of in there reports, and they went and issued the occupancy permits with blinders on.
To start with
there's the 30 yr old fire system with bells which are not UL listed and approved to be used on the system. and the Firelite Miniscan 112 panels that's in there have a bad history of failing and not giving an indication of it also there are no tied in smoke detectors on 3rd floor living space or sounders. just 120 VAC with 9 VDC back up battery smokes. The staff if down stairs will never know a child may be in trouble.
The system was not tied into a central station but has since been and they are now after being warned how many times going to upgrade the system.
Then there's the Sprinkler system with no tamper or lock on main water supply valve and a leaking main elbow and the fact DPW inspector made them cover over the sprinkler pipes to keep kids from hanging on them which also effectively blocks the sprinkler heads spray pattern and did I mention the system has not even been tested to see if it works yet the kids are in there.
Then there's the Electrical issues many of them extremely serious including unfastened and incorrectly fastened and overloaded wiring there's all 2 prong plugs all over the place few if any GFCI Ground fault plugs etc etc etc it is a time bomb ready to go off. To make matters worse the home has no central air so they went and bought small plug in air conditioning in everywhere which now overloads and trips the breakers supplying power to the kitchen. add in all the new TV's video games ,computers etc and the electrical load on the house is just inviting problems.
They got away with this dangerous wiring when it had old people in there but now you have active teens a disaster in the making. then there's the plumbing they will be there every week with clean out snakes it is not designed for 8 kids and 4 staff and in many places the gas lines where improperly done with copper pipe instead of flex connectors.
So as you can see everyone dropped the ball the city which has only 3 fire inspectors who are worked to death, now under the building inspection section instead of fire service the DPW inspector who has his head up his ass. and is more worried about paper work and how things look instead of the safety of the kids. and the homes owner the at risk group is renting who just does not give a damn about following rules. Yes it is just a sad situation all around I ask everyone reading this article to say a prayer for these kids tonight because this goes on all over Pa. and many other states. The message is very clear if your poor, old and invalid ,crippled, special needs at risk
We just do not give a F#$K about you. Your a useless eater sad but true.
Hopefully the right thing will be done but no it will not all I will get is more grief trying to protect these kids i have paid a terrible price over the years for demanding the right thing be done being the only one some times to do what is right. But then again maybe that's why God allowed me to survive stage 4 colon cancer
because many people say he has a mission for me maybe this is it. Making sure the kids are safe and the ball is not being dropped. Besides as a Fire and safety expert I am compelled by law to report things. So once again another case file in my grand jury file waiting to be put in a District attorneys and wrongful deaths attorneys hands.
and this file is getting ever bigger and is kept in several places including out of state waiting for the day it will be used against those who will not do the right thing.
Its a damn shame things always have to come to this some one has to die often many people have to die before the right thing is done.
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