Faulty fire alarm at Hub L.A. Figueroa causes confusion, annoyance
Residents complained about the alarm from the downstairs Taco Bell waking them up at night.
By KARTHIK KRISHNAMURTHY
Charlotte Song was in bed when the fire alarm in her off-campus apartment building, Hub Los Angeles Figueroa, went off around 3 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 19. It wasn’t the first time her building’s fire alarm had gone off at an odd time, as it had an ongoing problem. But as the minutes passed, Song began wondering whether it was real.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I think it actually might be a real fire,’” said Song, a sophomore majoring in computer science and business administration. “Before, no one left because everyone knew it was a fake [alarm], but then I could hear the door to the stairs opening … [and] people were talking like, ‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ I was like, ‘Oh, fuck, it’s actually a fire.’”
Ultimately, it was another false alarm, and she said it turned off after about 10 minutes. Her experience wasn’t an isolated incident, though. Students living at Hub L.A. Figueroa have experienced multiple false fire alarm incidents this semester because of a faulty fire alarm at the Taco Bell directly below the apartments.
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Interviewed residents’ estimates for the number of false fire alarms varied from three to seven. Song said she estimated the alarm had gone off four or five times this semester while she was in her room but wasn’t entirely sure of the total count.
“To be honest, I stopped getting up,” she said. “I don’t really know [how often the alarm has gone off] because I’m kind of disoriented, because it happens when I wake up and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is a fire alarm,’ and then I just go back to bed.”
Ricky Liu, another resident and third-year architecture student, said the fire alarm tends to ring a few times, cuts off and then resumes once more.
“You would think it’s done after it’s been cut off,” he said. “But it just comes in randomly. It’s completely spontaneous.”
Liu said the majority of times the alarm has gone off has been in the middle of the night, but that the alarm also once went off around 4 p.m. and another time around 8 a.m.
Hub L.A. Figueroa emailed all residents on Aug. 21, warning them about an issue with the fire alarm that caused it to go off at 4:15 a.m. Management said they would have a security team on hand to manually turn off the alarm each morning. They said they expected the issue to be fixed by the end of the week.
After that, Song said there was no email communication until Sept. 20, when the management team told residents the faulty Taco Bell fire alarm was tied into the building-wide panel and announced plans to fix the issue. Song noted that there weren’t any problems with the alarm for the first two weeks.
Residents put the number of false alarms this semester between three and seven. Charlotte Song, a building resident, said she has began ignoring the nighttime alarms and going back to sleep. (Ellie Henderson / Daily Trojan)
“Taco Bell and Hub Figueroa have been working diligently to repair this issue; we have a vendor that will be on-site later today to assess what additional parts need to be ordered and what repairs need to be made,” the management team wrote in the Sept. 20 email.
On Sep. 23, the building sent out another email to residents, this time letting them know that a vendor would be working on-site throughout the week to repair the fire alarm. According to Song, Hub L.A. Figueroa did not send any emails to residents after this, and she was unaware whether the alarm had been repaired.
In a statement to the Daily Trojan on Sept. 24, Hub L.A. Figueroa wrote they had determined the cause of the issue and were working with the Taco Bell restaurant to fix it.
“In the meantime, we have taken the necessary steps to prevent further false alarms at Hub L.A. Figueroa, minimizing disruptions to our residents,” they wrote.
When asked whether the alarm had been fixed Sept. 27, Hub L.A. Figueroa again wrote they had “taken the necessary steps to prevent further false alarms” but did not clarify whether the repair had been completed. The Taco Bell restaurant, which had the malfunctioning alarm, did not respond to requests for comment.
The fire alarm situation can make students less likely to heed the alarm during an actual emergency, according to Liu. He said it was “confusing” not knowing whether to leave the building when the alarm goes off.
“I would actually be a little concerned if the actual thing happens. What would happen? We don’t know if it’s real or not. If people are going to see that this is fake fire alarms every time, what happens if a real thing actually happened?” he said. “It would just be a little bit worrying if there was an actual fire and no one leaves.”
Helenna Eyobe, a junior majoring in business administration, said the false alarms have made her trust the alarm less. Last year, she lived at Cowlings and Ilium Residential College, where there was a fire in February — something she’s reminded of when the fire alarm goes off.
“[At Cowlings] we would not listen to the alarms. We would just get over it. We were like, ‘Hey, this is just a drill or whatever,’” Eyobe said. “And then it was an actual fire last time. So this time, we want to not go down, but we’re also scared because [of] trauma.”
Liu said the alarm hasn’t affected him as much because he typically stays up late, but that the alarm has woken up his roommate in the middle of the night.
“I try to ignore it most of the time because what can you do? It’s 3 or 4 in the morning. I’m in bed, and then you hear that, and it’s annoying. It’s annoying as hell. But I try to just be like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna pass,’” he said.
