Neighbors at an apartment complex where a woman recently died in a fire are concerned about safety measures in place.
28-year-old Taneshia Smith died after she found in a bath tub at the following Sunday's fire at the Olive Grove Apartments on Karen Avenue. Her mother Teresa Price maintains the Clark County Fire Department could have done more.
Amberly Lacy lives in the same building as Smith. She never spoke with Smith, but did talk to other neighbors and has complained about the safety of her unit.
Lacy told 13 Action News she spent nine months repeatedly asking the management to fix her broken smoke detectors.
"They were chirping, we tried changing the batteries, they continued to chirp," said Lacy, who shares the unit with her husband and 6-month-old daughter. "Like 3 a.m. they'd go off. So we ended up just leaving the batteries out after placing a work order and not having them fixed."
Lacy said that was the case for most of the other units she's been inside at the complex. But that was not her only concern.
"Even before this incident, they weren't helping me get a working carbon monoxide detector," she said. "Most apartments that I went into, they didn't have a carbon monoxide detector at all."
She says the building fire alarms work well, and went off the day of the fire in Smith's unit. But she said people don't take them seriously because of all the issues and all-day testing they've done.
"We were outside for probably 15 minutes with our 6-month-old before people started leaving their apartments," Lacy said.
13 Action News went to the office to talk with management, but they told us to call their management company.
Stout Management told us none of the managers were in the office. We sent them an email, but they did not respond.
We also called the Clark County Fire Department to ask about the incident and what they could have done. They said they will not be giving interviews until the investigation is done.
Clark County took our calls and put in an official complaint to go check out the complex.
Per state law, landlords at buildings with more than three units are required to provide smoke detectors.
Buildings of a certain size must also have fire sprinklers. If they don't, you can call code enforcement. There are no laws in Nevada about providing carbon monoxide detectors.
