Seven years passed,

In June, 2016, the tenant vacated the property.

I visited the buildings after being away from them for all this time.

They smelled.

I described the odor as mold.

One of our guys described it as diesel fuel.

I didn’t know the source of the odor, but we ran dehumidifiers and tried everything, including walking up and down the street to see if anyone had an old and leaking oil tank.

I drove my favorite neighbor, John Pacylowski (who owned Precious Gifts with his beautiful wife Sun) nuts. I asked to see his old oil tank. I asked him to have it inspected for leaks.

He was a sport about it and was also concerned.  He acknowledged the odor and so he obliged. His oil company inspected his tank and ruled out any leakage. John inspected my church to see if an oil company had dropped oil down the old oil drop by accident — and affirmed that was not the case.

We all agreed that there was a smell.

Nobody else on the street had an oil tank.

The case was closed.

Unsolved mystery.

My guess: Fuel offsets from traffic were mixing with the leaking water main. Water was accumulating under our sub-foundation and likely under the Burgess Building’s crumbling-and-never-properly-repaired-foundation.

From the google earth photo, it appears that the County attempted to hire a contractor to fix this leak, though the insurance company‘s attorney insisted that this work was done by BGE.

Something was causing an odor I identified when visiting the buildings 6 weeks before “the flood.” This water main leak predated the 3 inches of rain we had on July 30, 2016.

A new tenant moved into The Brook Building on July 1, 2016.