Inspectors for the city of Boston shut down an auto repair shop near Logan International Airport Wednesday, part of which they said had been turned into a 20-bed “crash pad” for flight attendants to sleep at between shifts.
The East Boston residential unit, featuring 10 bunk beds packed into two bedrooms above a mechanic shop, had been illegally constructed, the city Inspectorial Service said.
The people sleeping there were all believed to be flight attendants paying roughly $300 a month for what they called a “crash pad,” the city told WHDH. Beneath them, the garage was being used as a warehouse.
“They live there, they sleep there, they eat there. So it’s residential, it’s illegal and it’s dangerous,” city inspector John Meaney told the network. “On paper, it’s a garage. They had somebody construct an apartment above the garage, which is illegal. No permits pulled.”
The rooms had no smoke alarms and only one means of exit in case of an emergency. Nearby the bunks were hazardous materials, officials said as they condemned the facility.
“From my understanding, they’ve been operating for about 10 years there, so they went under the radar for quite a while,” Flavio Daveiga, the inspector’s director of constituent services, told CBS Boston. “They’re just using it as a resting point like refresh and then continuing on to their trips or their commute back to their home base.”
Inspectors also discovered a kitchen and four bathrooms installed without permits, an exposed ceiling and an opening in the chimney, they told WHDH.
The building presented a fire hazard, and the tenants were asked to leave while the city took control of the property, the network reported.
“It’s unfortunate that we have these types of landlords who are not thinking about the safety of individuals but about how to line their pockets,” city officials told WHDH in a statement.
“What you really had was a death trap,” Meaney said. “I don’t think any of them knew it.”
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