To keep the story short a friend was told during a pest inspection that their apartment was a fire hazard due to the amount of furniture they have in their apartment.
Personally I don’t see it. It is a smaller apartment and they have two shelves in their bedroom that do make it feel a little small when combined with their queen bed but there’s still a little over three feet of space around the bed. Their partner and them each have a desk in their living room along with a couch, a tool chest, coffee table, and TV stand.
It’s something I’ve never heard of and seems very arbitrary for the landlords to call out. I tried finding images online of fire hazard apartments but it was all images of daisy chained extension cords and hoarders.
Ideally I’d like to help them relax and ensure them it’s not something they can get evicted over.
Call the local fire department non-emergency number and ask if they can schedule a visit to inspect your fire alarms and provide recommendations on the situation. The fire department is genuinely interested in your safety, because it’s also important for their safety so they don’t have to come rescue you. If anything is a fire hazard, the professionals can explain why and explain how to fix it. But they’ll probably say “WTF” because the landlord is most likely just being a fuckface, as landlords do. Assuming the latter, ask them if you get the “WTF” in writing so you can wave it in the landlord’s face when you tell them to fuck off and die.
I actually forgot to add this. A few weeks later while they were out of their unit a group that manages their fire suppression system came by as part of routine inspection of the building and they didn’t mention anything. I don’t know if they would normally say something but I feel like if it was bad enough they probably should have.
Might want to be careful with that. If it’s bad enough the fire marshal will get involved with enforcement.