Troy

Troy police questioned a woman Saturday after neighbors told officials she set their apartment building on fire, leaving seven adults and three children without a home.

No one was injured, but 349 Congress St. residents say it could have been prevented if the landlord had evicted the woman when they first began reporting her threatening behavior last week.

The fire broke out just before 9 a.m. near a rear apartment on the top floor of the three-story building and spread to other apartments, Troy Deputy Fire Chief Eric McMahon said. Investigators labeled it suspicious, and called in the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control to help determine a cause. The building sustained heavy fire damage, but should not have to be demolished, McMahon said.

Troy police, with the help of reports from residents, were able to track down the woman by tracing her cellphone to Menands. Menands police located the woman and turned her over to Troy police. Troy detectives were called in to interview her, but no charges had been filed as of Saturday evening.

Residents and the landlord say the woman was referred to live in the building by Unity House, a Troy-based human service agency that helps people living in poverty, victims of domestic violence, and adults with mental illness or HIV/AIDS.

Residents said they noticed the woman behaving strangely at times since moving in about two months ago. They said she accused neighbors of putting "stuff" in her food and shampoo, and hiding cameras in her walls.

Landlord Kamran Ehsani said the woman sprayed one of her light bulbs black to prevent the FBI from spying on her.

Kareema Thomas, a 27-year-old mother of two who lived across the hall, said the behavior turned threatening in recent weeks.

"I was in my room one day and I'm coming outside and she's calling my name and using profanities and she's gonna kill me and she's gonna kill my kids and there's 1,000 ways to die," she recalled Saturday from the scene. "I didn't say anything. I didn't even answer her. But on Wednesday she came and started turning the knob on my door and cursing and carrying on and that's when I called my landlord, because I was scared for my life."

Saturday around 8:45, someone started banging on her door.

"She said, 'I'm gonna kill you, Kareema. I'm gonna set your apartment on fire!' And that's what she did," Thomas said. "She set it on fire."

Ehsani, the landlord, said the woman did not appear unusual whenever he spoke with her. He said he called Unity House to let them know her behavior was escalating, but that the agency told him it couldn't do anything.

"They said, 'Oh we cannot do anything, you are on your own,' " he said. "Once they come in here, they're my tenant. From that point on, Unity House kind of like cuts their umbilical cord. But as far as the law is concerned, I have no legal way to say, OK, get out of here."

Unity House CEO Chris Burke, when contacted was unaware of the Congress Street fire and could not speak to the woman's case. But he said anybody Unity House places in an apartment has the same tenant-landlord relationship as anyone else who signs a lease. Unity House pays a portion of the rent, but the tenant signs the same lease as anyone else, he said.

If the landlord had called the agency and reported one of its tenants was making threats or posing a danger, Unity House would have "made sure the police were called," he added.

"And if there was any concern that a person posed a danger, either to themselves or others, because of mental health issues, we would try to get that person evaluated," he said. "We would do that 100 percent of the time."

Unique Fair, another building resident, said she was placed there through Unity House in May 2015. Before that, she was homeless, sleeping on park benches around Long Island. When her mother died, she took all her furniture and moved upstate, where the Troy agency helped her find an apartment.

"I don't have no brothers, no sisters, no family," she said. "My mother died. Seven months after that, my grandmother died. I'm an only child. I have four children. Two are here with me, a 15-month-old and a three-week old. Red Cross is going to help us, but I just got my life back together and now we're back homeless again."

Fair said she told employees at Unity House about the woman making threats in her building, and that they told her the landlord needed to call police.

bbump@timesunion.com • 518-454-5387 • @bethanybump