ANDY PALUMBO
WNEP

Residents of an apartment building for the elderly that caught fire want to know what happens now after fire forced them from their homes.


A few residents of the building said they were told Monday by firefighters careless smoking led to the late night fire on Centre Street in Freeland.

A state police fire marshal has yet to list the official cause.

Monday morning was a time for the building's residents to try to get back to normal.

Lorie Cudwadie showed up at the apartment building on Centre Street to gather personal belongs for her husband's great aunt.

"She has nothing so she just would like to get a few personal things," Cudwadie said.

The great aunt and 25 others were forced out late Sunday night when fire broke out in a first floor apartment.

The great aunt is okay and she will be better now that she has some of what she left behind.

Cudwadie's relative and many others were put up by the American Red Cross at Genetti's Best Western, not far from Freeland.

Gwen Motzkus has a room there. "The older you get, the more you just want to be home," Motzkus said. "I want to go home." She doesn't know when she will be able to return to the first floor apartment she's called home for 11 years.

Tyler Motzkus, Gwen's 12-year-old grandson, was also there Sunday night. The fire interrupted a week long vacation stay with his grandmother. "I was worried all the stuff I had there would catch on, and burn everything," he said.

As for the boy'[s grandmother, she will leave the hotel and stay with her daughter, just waiting for the word she can go home.

The Freeland borough manager said Monday morning the building is owned by a private company and there is no history of violations.

That private company, Freeland Elderly, has a contract with the federal government to provide housing for the senior citizens and it gets a monthly inspection by federal regulators.