Fire alarm sounds four times in a week

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Four times in just a week. That's how many times residents at the Weida Apartments on Harrison Street in West Lafayette had the fire alarm waken them out out of their sleep.

Resident Alyssa Auer said the problem has become not only frustrating, but concerning.

"It's gone off so often that people don't even respond to the fire alarm anymore," said Auer. "They don't even attempt to leave because it's just kind of become commonplace that it's a false alarm."

Auer has lived in the apartment complex for only three weeks, but said her neighbors have been dealing with this situation for the past year.

Auer said when her neighbor called to report the faulty alarm to management, their response was alarming.

"They told her they would be out in the morning, they were not going to come out right then," said Auer.

The West Lafayette Fire Department, however, did come out.

In fact, firefighters said they've visited the apartment complex nine times just this year. 

West Lafayette Fire Chief Tim Heath said already, they've noticed a lack of urgency by residents who live there.

"The assistant chief on duty that day did have everyone evacuate," said Heath. "But, they had to go door-to-door to get the kids out. "

Chief Heath said they have been working closely with the Weida Apartment complex to get the situation fixed, but said in the meantime, he wants all residents to take these alarms seriously.

"We want the kids to know that if the alarms do go off at any building in the city, we want them to evacuate the building," said Heath. "Let the fire department come in and determine the problem, and then we'll deem the building safe to reenter."
    
Cristie Erb, property manager for Weida Apartments, did not wish to do an interview with NewsChannel 18. However, she said they have had an engineer look at the alarms.

She said the engineer told her it is probable that lightning struck the circuit board, causing the malfunction.

Erb wants to assure residents the alarms do still work and said they will have a new circuit board by next week.