Wednesday, October 08, 2003

By Mike Bucsko, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

To cope with the unseasonably chilly nights the past couple of weeks, Carolyn Weber and many of her neighbors in a McKeesport elderly high-rise opened the doors of their ovens and turned them on because the building's heating system was not operational.

James and Edna Saylor were no different.

But the couple's use of the stove to heat their fifth-floor apartment in the Steel View Manor high-rise had fatal consequences.

The Saylors -- he was 79 and she 74 -- who had lived in the 88-unit building since 2001, were found dead shortly after noon yesterday. An autopsy is scheduled today to determine the exact causes of death.

Police offered a preliminarily conclusion yesterday that the couple had died when their apartment filled with natural gas after the pilot light of their oven went out.

The bodies were found after their son alerted the McKeesport Housing Authority yesterday that he had tried unsuccessfully to reach his parents by telephone for the past few days.

Beatrice Larkins, who lives in the apartment next door to the Saylors, said she did not smell any gas until housing authority workers arrived and opened the door to 5A, the couple's apartment.

On Monday, residents of the sixth floor reported a gas odor to the building's maintenance workers. The source of the odor was not detected, said Allegheny County police Detective Scott Scherer.

The Saylors apparently died sometime in the middle of the day Saturday, Scherer said. The morning newspaper was inside the couple's apartment, but the day's mail was still outside, he said.

Inside the apartment, police found the oven door open, the heat set to 350 degrees and the pilot light out. The overnight temperature Friday was in the mid-40s.

The Saylors were among dozens of residents in the high-rise who resorted to an alternative source of heat because the authority had not yet gotten the building's new boilers on line.

The lack of heat has been a source of irritation to many residents recently.

"I told them [last week] that I'm not paying my rent until I get some heat in the building," said Gloria Bauerschmidt, who has lived in the high-rise for two years. "I paid it anyway and I'm still cold."

Bauerschmidt, Weber and other residents complained that the boiler project, which began in May, has taken too long and the residents' needs have been disregarded by the authority management.

"They could have gotten those little [space] heaters for us or something," Weber said.

Officially, the authority was not planning to turn on the heat in the high-rise until Oct. 20, a date which, under normal weather conditions, should have been sufficient for the residents, said John Kooser Jr., the housing authority's executive director.

Installation of the new boilers is part of a $650,000 contract to replace boilers in Steel View Manor and Eisbir Manor, Kooser said. The boilers in Steel View Manor were examined yesterday by a state inspector and are ready to be fired up, he said.

Housing authority officials are well aware that residents resort to using their ovens for heat when they are cold, though the use of ovens for that purpose is unauthorized under tenant regulations, Kooser said.

"We've known about it forever, and it's illegal for families to use the stove for heat," Kooser said. "But it doesn't make any difference ... the poor souls are gone."

Kooser said the Saylors' deaths should serve as an example to others who are considering the use of their ovens for heat.

"It's not the cold or the lack of heat or anything else that killed this family," he said. "It was the terrible mistake to use the oven to heat their apartment."

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