Flames poured from the windows of a sixth-floor apartment in Bay Ridge early Monday, hours after a man was found dead inside the same apartment.
Residents in the building on Shore Road woke up around 1 a.m. to the sound of fire engines outside their front door.
The man was found dead in the apartment on Sunday after residents reported a bad smell coming from the sixth floor.
“Yesterday when I came home from a pool party, there were cop cars out here. They said that they had called in a bad smell on the sixth floor,” building resident Tessa Garcia said.
“There was a body, it seemed. I believe police came at that point, but they were waiting for the medical examiner until very late at night,” she added.
Police have not identified the man but said he died of natural causes and that his death was not considered suspicious.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
The Red Cross says two households are now receiving emergency assistance after their apartments were damaged when firefighters worked to put out the flames.
According to residents, the man was a hoarder, and they complained about odors coming from the apartment.
“He lived in squalor on the sixth floor,” Derek Sabido said. “He had mounds of cat food that was spoiled. He had pounds of feces on his floor.”
“It’s concerning, this man kind of lived in a hoarding way and there had been complaints about smells and other challenges,” Garcia said. “So, it is concerning that there was sort of a safety issue that became then a real safety issue. You know this could’ve been a lot worse than it was.”
The chief medical examiner is working to determine the cause of the man’s death.
An investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.