Billy Joel famously sang that he didn’t set fires, but the Duluth, Minnesota, landlord likely sang it last week when he used a pianist song as the soundtrack.
Travis Carlson, 37, is accused of setting his apartment on fire in the 2400 block of Fourth Street while “We Didn’t Set Fire,” cbs news report.
According to the outlet, police received a call about 4 a.m. on May 18 that the upstairs apartment was on fire. When they arrived, not only was the apartment on fire, but songs were also blaring, the outlet said, citing criminal complaints.
One downstairs tenant said they were woken up by Carlson “smashing things” before being warned by Carlson that the house was on fire.
The police report also said a neighbor found Carlson with a gas canister under his truck. Investigators found a hole in the truck’s fuel tank. Carlson suffered burns to his arms and legs.
He was charged with first-degree arson.
While this doesn’t happen often, landlords do break the law from time to time.
Last year, Levonn Bell, 36, was charged after an escalation in an eviction allegedly pulled out a butcher knife after police responded to her distress call. WXIX reports.
Bell, who was charged with felony, obstruction and disorderly conduct, allegedly called police to ask them to remove tenants from her building at Golf Estates.
Bell told officers she had earlier legally evicted the tenants, but they got back into the apartment through a broken window.
In January, Brooklyn-based landlord Aron Stark was held on Rikers Island for failing to make repairs as ordered by a court.
Stark spent eight days in the notorious jail at 1422 Bushwick Green Avenue in Gotham City for failing to fix various infractions ReportA litany of problems in the three-storey apartment block including cockroaches, insufficient heating and hot water.
Inspectors pointed to the property dating back to 2021 for a heat outage and inadequate fire protection.The jail time may have less to do with the violation than his failure to respond to court notices; Stark was arrested on Dec. 8 for civil contempt and sent to Rikers by a judge centaur smith.
Aaron Carr, founder of the Housing Rights Initiative, told Gothamist, “It’s not only rare, it’s almost unheard of for a landlord to be a tenant in a prison cell.”
— Ted Glazer
