Almost all residents of the apartments on Brahmslaan in Eindhoven are allowed to go home again on Friday, a week after the blazing fire last week. Housing corporation Woonbedrijf says that most of the houses were released after inspection, but two apartments remain uninhabitable. One of those houses is from Angelique, who is not going to return: “I no longer feel safe here.”
Angelique lives above the apartment where the fire broke out after an explosion. Work still has to take place there. Woonbedrijf expects that this apartment will also be habitable again in the short term, but Angelique has little faith in that. “Recovering will take months,” she says. “I’m not going to wait for that.”
Soot
She can only enter her house on Friday afternoon to get some things. She steps in with nodding knees. “It’s not fun. It’s a very stuffy air.” Her bed is black with soot. “They can probably throw everything away, but they will try to clean it.”
Under supervision she was able to take a photo and a little bit of clothing. Then the front door was closed again. Outside she tells that her safe place is gone. “I just felt that everything was moving up. I no longer feel safe there.”
New home
She no longer wants to live on Brahmslaan. “Too much happened here. My grandson was bitten here last year by a dog and now this. In two weeks I will get a new home.” She goes back to Spijkenisse, to her parents. “I am sleeping there for a week now. Next week I will go to a holiday home in Veldhoven. I have to do everything from 200 euros a week of insurance, of course that will not work.”
The house where the fire broke out has not yet been released. “Repair work must take place here and it may take a while before this is completed,” says Woonbedrijf.