Burglaries under investigation at scene of fatal apartment fire in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — Nine burglaries have been reported to police at a northeast Cedar Rapids apartment building that tenants say they were removed from after a fire killed one person and injured three others in December.

The South Chalet apartment building, 210 19th St. NE, caught fire Dec. 5 and killed Wasfia Elshannaway, 71. The cause of the fire was determined to be accidental, but more specifics about the circumstances have yet been released. The fire investigation still is ongoing, according to the Cedar Rapids Fire Department.

Freedom REMI, the real estate company that manages the apartment building, has not responded to several phone calls from The Gazette requesting comment about the fire or the thefts. Former occupants said all tenants were removed from the building after the fire and were allowed to either break their lease or move to other apartment buildings managed by Freedom REMI.

Friday, former tenants were able to go back into the building for the first time since the fire, and many discovered their possessions had been rooted through and things were stolen. According to Cedar Rapids police, as of Monday nine third-degree burglaries have been reported at the property since Friday and are under investigation.

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Anna Peterson, a former tenant, was in her apartment at the time of the fire and was rescued by firefighters through a window. Her two cats were home with her and also got out alive. She and her husband moved with their cats to a different apartment owned by Freedom REMI because they liked the month-to-month leasing contract they had. But now they’re considering if they want to stay, she said.

“It’s just very frustrating because it feels like … the landlord and the property owner were more concerned with maintaining their assets rather than any of the assets that were still in the building,” Peterson said.

Peterson said she and her husband were told by the property manager they could get back into the building starting at 8:30 a.m. Friday, but they didn’t find out until they got there that they would have only until noon before the building was closed again. Once they got inside and saw their apartment had been rummaged through, they focused on getting all of their valuable items out of the apartment. Luckily, not much had been damaged by the fire except some was covered in soot.

Peterson said she doesn’t know what security protocols were put in place while the building was closed, and she doesn’t know if her and her husband will be able to be compensated for any of their missing belongings.

“At the very least, the only good thing that can be said is that it seems like they were picky looters,” Peterson said. “It was very clear that they went through every single drawer. They opened up our document lockbox and the dumped out all the documents, but car titles were still in there.”

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Things that were stolen from their apartment, from what they could determine Friday, included a gaming system, a kitchen knife, a bathroom scale, a box of cables and some microphones. But other high-value items — like a computer tower and multiple monitors — were left behind and have now been moved to the couple’s new apartment.

Peterson said tenants were told by the property company they’ll have full access later this month to remove everything from their apartments.

“It’s just a lot more frustration on top of everything, ” Peterson said. “It’s just hard to know when it happened. It’s hard to know if we had just been let in one week earlier if this wouldn’t have been the case, or if this happened the second week after the fire.”

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com