It Smells Like Burning

Every psychology student hears about the famous case of Kitty Genovese as an illustration of the "bystander effect". This is when people know something is going wrong, but there are a lot of people around and they don't help because they know many others are around and expect someone else will take responsibility. The higher the number of people, the less likely that any individual will decide to take action.

This morning, I had an experience which may or may not have been similar. As I've mentioned before, I live in a building with 19 units and a small (four-machine - two washers and two dryers) laundry room. The laundry room is next to some poor sod's apartment and I've often thought about how annoying it must be to be next to the noise of the machines and the smell and heat of the exhaust vent on the dryers. When you walk by, you can often see and smell fabric softener or laundry detergent as well as feel the hot air blowing out. If you lived in the apartment next door, opening one of the two windows would certainly get you a nose-ful as well as heat up your place from the exhaust.

My usual route to the trash bins takes me by the laundry room. It's a longer jaunt than the closer route, but it ends much closer to the bins and I am generally okay with a little more exercise. As I walked by, I heard what sounded like a high-pitched screech from a belt. It's the sort of thing I used to hear in my old cars when the fan belt got wonky or in a vacuum cleaner which had seen better days and had one foot in the appliance grave. I also thought that I smelled something burning, but figured that it was my imagination.

I walked over to the trash bins and, as I stood there taking care of business, I heard a mother in the opposite building (the one I call the "white trash building") hassling her kid. She said, "You're spilling water everywhere? Why are you doing that? Do you like wasting water? Do you like being messy?" I thought about how this was fairly bad parenting. Kids are careless. Hell, adults are careless, and walking with a cup of water isn't necessarily an easy task when you're young and have less than fully developed balance. Some fully-grown and poorly paid waitresses still can't manage it. Of course the kid wasn't trying to waste water or enjoying being messy. The kid was being a kid. The mom was just being an idiot.

After managing the trash (a task that takes awhile because of the unlocking and locking of the bins and the need to use two different ones for that which is and is not recyclable) and judging that woman's parenting I passed by the laundry room again. At this point, smoke was coming out of a washing machine and the burning smell was clearer. At this point, I also panicked and ran to the property manager's apartment.

The truth is that I have never had any experience with smoking appliances, so I'm not sure what, if anything, I should have done. My estimation of the situation was that it was bad and getting worse, but there was an equation in play that I am too ignorant to know how to safely handle. That little math problem is metal + water + electricity + burning. My fear was that it would soon also include actual fire and that this was best dealt with by someone who has had more experience than me, or at least is less of a coward about touching large, water-filled metal objects connected to enormous power supplies.

I banged a few times on the property manager's door, but there was no answer. As I gave up, I considered whether I should call him and report it or return to the scene. I could actually do both as I could run back and see how bad it was then make a call if it didn't look even worse. As I started to run back, Hector (said property manager) opened the door to his place and I quickly told him the situation and went back to the laundry room and waited for him.

In the short time that had passed, things had gotten worse. The smell was toxic and acrid and the entire laundry room was filled with smoke. I opened the laundry room with my key so Hector could jump in right away (yes, the laundry room is locked, too). He pulled open the lid of the machine and found that an enormous white down comforter had been crammed in there. It seemed to have been attempting to strangle the agitator to death as it was wrapped in a death grip around the central core. The machine had valiantly fought back as little flecks of comforter popped out and fell to the floor when Hector pulled the comforter off of the dying machine's agitator.

Hector asked me is the comforter was mine. The question stunned me, but I guess it wasn't so off-base since I was the one who reported the problem. I said that it was not and I was just passing by and smelled/saw what was going on. Hector's cute daughter (Bella) had followed down and he warned her to stay back as he opened the lone window to disperse the toxic smoke. My guess is he was afraid there still might be fire, but I thought also that she shouldn't be inhaling the almost certainly poisonous smoke.

I commented that the machine was likely ruined now and that whoever did that really should be responsible for the repair. I also noted which machine it was in case it didn't get marked as broken. I don't want to waste my money using a machine that had likely burnt out most of it's belt. Hector said, "Why would anybody do that?" I said that I believed that they may not have wanted to pay more to have it properly cleaned, but he said laundromats have big machines to accommodate them. To this, I could only say that perhaps they were just too lazy to bother. Of course, the more obvious answer is that the party was simply too stupid to figure out why it's a bad idea to cram an enormous comforter into such a machine.

I left Hector after telling him that I was sorry that he had to spend some of his Sunday dealing with these sorts of messes and he thanked me and stood there pondering the next move. The problem with figuring out who to hold responsible is that he'd have to essentially stake out the laundry room for an indefinite time period until someone showed up to claim their vanquished comforter and that's just no practical. He could leave a note telling the mentally limited party to contact him, but unless the perpetrator is really as stupid (and not merely lazy or cheap) as his or her actions indicate, he or she will not own up to what happened knowing money might have to leave a wallet.

After returning to my apartment and explaining what had happened to my husband (who had grown somewhat concerned by my prolonged absence, but figured I'd run into Hector and chatted with him - which I sort of did in a roundabout way), I thought about what had occurred. Mainly, I wondered if people did these sorts of things due to a sense of putting someone else's property at risk. There are signs telling people not to overload the machines. Do people not know why? Do they not care about breaking them because they won't have to pay for repair? Are they really so dumb that they don't understand the consequences or are they acting as if they assessing the situation in the most positive way possible?

The other thought that I had lead me to remembering the bystander effect (also known as bystander apathy) and the Kitty Genovese case that I mentioned initially. Did no one else smell, hear, or see what was going on? In particular, the person living in the adjacent apartment, who was almost certainly home on a Sunday morning around 11:00 am, must have heard that screaming belt. If it were me, I'd have wanted to know what was going on and checked as the sound was pretty annoying.

Did anyone else notice what was happening and ignore it because there are 19 units in the building and they didn't want to be the one to try and deal with the problem? Or, was I simply the only one who was in the "right place" at the "right time" in order to catch a situation which could have resulted in our building being burned down (or, less dramatically, the total loss of our laundry room facility)? It's impossible to know, but it is worth pondering. One thing I do know is that people can be incredibly irresponsible and it's all too often the case that someone else has be be more responsible in order to avoid the worst consequences of their choices. I've found that to be the case more often in America than I might have imagined.