When the phone rings at 3:30am...it is NEVER a good sign

I woke up to something ringing at 3:30am Saturday morning. I was so out of it that for the first few rings I couldn't figure out what was going on. I was on call this weekend and I had already figured out it wasn't that phone ringing, so I stumbled around our room until Davy woke up to tell me it was his phone. He had left it in the kitchen. While he was going to find his phone I just got back in bed, then half way out of consciousness I hear, "They are there now? Ok, I will be in the in about 10 mins." I knew at that point this wasn't going to be good.

Our tenant (the delinquent one) had called to let Davy know that her apartment was filled with smoke and she had called 911 and the fire department was already there.

The whole way to the apartment we were both freaking out. We really didn't know how serious the situation was, and we were also terrified because we had been meaning to go by and check all the smoke detectors.

When we got the the apartment the firemen were still there filling out the rest of the paperwork. They met us in the yard to let us know it was nothing serious. We followed them in the unit and they showed us the old fuse box. Basically (I think I have all the numbers right) the fuse box has two 100amp fuses. One of the fuses was burned in half and was totally black. He said that from what he has seen in the past, is that did not happen over night. There was something running in that unit that is draining that fuse and it has been draining for quite sometime. The fireman told us it would not be a good idea to just go by another fuse. He said that we needed to call an electrician first thing in the morning.
Basically the rest of the night we didn't sleep because we were so worried about the situation. Davy got up about 830am and started calling electricians. The first guy he called out there told him it would be $9,500!!!! I think I almost started crying when I heard that amount. He also called the electric company to have the meter pulled. If someone ever tells you, you should have your meter pulled DO NOT LET THEM! We got seriously lucky on Saturday. The second electrician came out to give us an estimate and Davy told him that the first guy said we needed to have the meter pulled. He looked up at us like we were crazy. He told us to get on the phone right away and tell them not to pull the meter. Basically he said it was a dirty way of guaranteeing a job. If he had had the meter pulled we would have to bring the whole building up to code and that would not come cheaply. He was able to take out the fuse box, put in a switch box, move it to an outside wall and turn down the heater and we should never have the problem again. And he did it all for $900!!!!

So our tenant has electricity again and it looks like all the other buildings already have switch boxes. So hopefully we won't have anymore problems. I feel like we have had a very unlucky streak here. Maybe things will be better for the next few months.