Eileen Malay skipped last year's St. Patrick's Parade to sweep her kitchen, swap library books and dabble on her computer.

On a lazy March Saturday, she heard a man command: "Kids, get away from the man with the gun." Rowdy neighbors often clashed down the street from her Far West Side apartment. It hadn't turned violent before.

She heard gunshots. She called her grown son and warned him to stay elsewhere that night. From the back door, she saw a police car.

Malay, 58, popped in Alfred Hitchcock's "Gaslight" to wait out the commotion in her rocking chair.

Eight feet away, a window exploded. Oh my God, she thought, a shotgun blast.

Malay ran into her bedroom and crouched in the closet. She heard another window explode.

Running low, she reached the kitchen and ducked behind the refrigerator. She reached for her cell phone to call 911. Her kitchen window exploded.

She took the stairs to the basement. Her skin burned and her mind had fogged. She was gagging on gas that the police had fired into her apartment.

What Malay didn't know was that her landlord, who she described as a gentle man with a well-tended garden, had shot and wounded his wife and killed his eldest son. Thach Ros, 62, a resident of an attached house at 303 Gere Ave., had barricaded himself with a rifle inside.

She dialed 911. An operator put her through to police. Officers couldn't enter the apartment. They would meet her at the back door.

Rushing upstairs, she grabbed her coat and purse, blew out the incense candles, switched off the television and left.

She has never been back. Syracuse police used CS gas, a chemical the U.S. military has agreed under international treaty not to use in warfare. It contaminated everything from her family heirlooms to library books, leaving her homeless with only the clothes on her back. Her apartment is still unsafe, 16 months after the gassing. Inside are her life's possessions, from her father's World War II photos to her son's Army papers.

Officers used 12-gauge shotguns and 40-milimeter launchers to deploy CS gas into both the Roses' house and Malay's attached apartment, according to a police report. A copy of the report was released by Malay's lawyer, Frank Gattuso of O'Hara, O'Connell & Ciotoli law firm.

City and police officials have declined to be interviewed.

Malay has never told her story -- until now. News accounts had focused on a father killing a son and police in riot gear staging a 29-hour standoff. Malay is suing the city and police department, accusing them of negligence and violating her constitutional rights by subjecting her to bodily harm from CS gas.

That danger continued after she fled the house.

Running past officers who had their protective shields drawn, Malay heard someone

shout, "Don't run that way, run towards the van!" She saw a police van, ran to it and got in.

She thought of her landlord's young children, Johnny and Victoria. "Did you get the kids out?" she asked. No answer. She asked again. Silence. Louder: "Did you get the kids out?" An officer said yes, except Peter. He had been shot. No one knew if he was dead or alive.

Malay remembers someone saying a medical technician should check her. But another officer said no. They needed her to diagram the house immediately.

"We need you to help us right now," the officer told her. "Would you do that?"

'What's wrong with me?'

Malay had no inkling Thach Ros could be homicidal. His eldest son, Sophin "Peter" Ros, collected her rent and came with his wife. They would sit and chat.

"He's just the nicest man," Malay said of Peter Ros. "So, of course, I was going to do whatever I could to help them, you know."

In the police van, she managed to ignore her burning skin and the metallic taste in her mouth. She sketched a floor plan. The Roses had invited her into their home for lunch after her refrigerator broke. The children showed her vacation photos.

Malay was questioned and remembers being left in a police cruiser for 21/2 hours.

About 9 p.m., she asked an officer to use the bathroom. The officer said she was free to go. No one offered her medical attention or told her to wash off the gas, she said.

Her son picked her up. Malay had shared the apartment for six months with her son, Jubal, after he was discharged from the Army after two tours in Iraq.

"I feel like I brought the war home to you," Jubal Malay told her that night.

With no place to go, Eileen Malay slept on her sister's couch. She didn't take a shower and crashed in her clothes, not realizing they were contaminated.

She first realized Thach Ros had killed his son, shot his wife and committed suicide while watching TV in her sister's living room.

The next day, her sister took her clothes shopping. She had lost everything: Her first leather coat. A $150 designer purse.

She bought a $20 replacement.

Malay asked her Army son and her father, a World War II veteran, about gas exposure. Her son speculated, if it's tear gas, it will just wear off. Her father said she should get back to work.

A day later, she tried to retrieve her car and was told to come back the next day. Tuesday, she picked up her 2002 Hyundai Accent GS. She got sicker driving it. She was having trouble breathing.

Malay called Lt. Joe Cecile and told him someone should get the car. It was making her sick and nobody should drive it. Police picked up the car and drove her to the emergency room at St. Joseph's Hospital Heath Center.

"I didn't know: 'What's wrong with me?'" Malay recalled.

She told the hospital receptionist she had breathed in tear gas. The officer said it was CS gas.

The young emergency room doctor didn't know anything about gas exposure. He looked it up on the Internet, Malay said. Nurses gave her oxygen.

After six hours, Malay was released with suggestions she drink water and get plenty of rest.

On the way home, the police officer gave her a $1,000 check on behalf of the department and apologized for what happened, Malay said. Police and City Hall officials would not discuss the money.

A week later, Malay followed up with a general practitioner. A former runner, Malay hadn't seen her doctor in about 20 years, her lawyer said.

On top of her shallow breathing, metallic taste and skin burn, Malay said she also suffered prolonged bouts of crying and depression. Her physical symptoms worsened whenever she came into contact with chemicals, whether at the gas station or around bleach. She was given an inhaler to help her breathe. Her skin felt as though it was rubbing on fiberglass shavings.

When the doctor asked what chemicals were used at the standoff, the city sent Malay's doctor a record showing CS gas was used. Copies were released by Malay's lawyer.

Syracuse police guidelines for CS gas exposure include washing with soap and water, flushing of the eyes and exposure to fresh air. Malay says police never offered her any treatment.

The victim should also seek a physician's assistance, according to the guidelines. No one told her to see a doctor, Malay said

A life in limbo

Even being homeless, little things nagged at Malay. She wondered what to do about her overdue borrowed books. Cecile, the police lieutenant, promised to call the library and explain.

"I was racking up library fines," she said. "For some reason, I was very upset at the time I was going to lose my library card. It became paramount importance for me."

She moved in with her son's girlfriend. She called the Red Cross and was told it could only house people for one night. She called the state, but was told there was no assistance because she wasn't a victim of the shooting.

She called the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which wasn't able to cleanse the apartment. Only the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it knew what she needed: somebody who specialized in environmental hazards.

After agreeing to help, the city suggested a guy named "Rich," Malay said in an interview. No last name. They had a phone number for Rich. When Malay called him, Rich said he'd never handled CS gas in his life.

He didn't have insurance. He had no business address. Rich refused to give his last name, Malay said.

She said no.

Malay found a New Jersey company, Bio-Clean.

CS gas was originally developed for military use during riots, said Bio-Clean owner Andrew Yurchuck but is no longer used by the military in warfare because it violates the Chemical Weapons Convention Act.

Bio-Clean wanted nearly $4,000 to enter the house and estimate how much it would cost to decontaminate.

To clean it, experts would enter with chemical weapons suits, ventilators and organic vapor filters. They would use a heat pasteurizer to raise the building's temperature to 140 degrees to evaporate the CS gas. They would use air scrubbers to capture and remove the hazard, Yurchuck said. The cost? Between $25,000 and $100,000, he said.

The city balked, Gattuso said.

City officials found a company in Plattsburgh that employed former military personnel. When Malay called, the company said it wasn't qualified.

After 16 months, the Gere Avenue apartment remains uninhabitable.

"Nobody knew what to do," Malay said. "You don't normally use this stuff on civilians."

A new beginning

Malay doesn't want to see the apartment again. Whoever is hired to clean up will have to take photos of her belongings so she can decide what to save. It's too dangerous for her to enter the house in her condition.

Her face still burns occasionally. She has allergies. Her hands go numb.

She moved last fall into a small apartment in Eastwood. One of her only possessions is a stepladder she bought to do odd jobs, like hang new curtains and change bulbs.

Her table, chair and television were donated by her landlord, a fellow tenant and her family. She sleeps on an air mattress.

Sitting in her new living room, in front of her new television, she thinks about the last time she was inside her old apartment. She jokes the Hitchcock movie is still cued to the spot where she left it.

After being gassed out of her home, Malay said her new apartment is a sign of how her life is coming together. "It's mine. It feels safe."

Last fall, Malay's son fled the state to escape the horror of what happened. Jubal Malay broke up with his girlfriend and felt nothing was left for him in New York.

He joined some Army buddies in Augusta, Ga., and is working in construction. He had trouble getting a job because no one believed he was in the Army, he said. All of his discharge papers are still quarantined inside the apartment.

"I spent 81/2 years in the service, two tours in Iraq, and didn't lose anything," Jubal Malay said. "Then I come home and my mother gets gassed and I lose everything."

Like her son, Eileen Malay has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Lionel G. Deutsch, of Woodstock, who specializes in psychosomatic medicine, said Malay also suffers from minor depressive disorder. "Prognosis is hard to estimate at this time," Deutsch wrote in his November 2007 report.

Malay said her condition has helped her relate to Jubal's struggles.

"Now we're like bookends -- I get it," she said. "I know what I have to do to cope, so I know how to help him."