By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Firefighters and police called to a small fire in an apartment on the 300 block of North Tower Avenue in Centralia yesterday morning learned a resident was trying to kill cockroaches with an improvised flame thrower.
They found light smoke in the area and a little pile of burned papers on the bathroom floor, which had burned itself out, according to the Centralia Police Department. It was just before 9 a.m.
He said he was using the bug spray Off and a cigarette lighter, but caught some paper on fire, Officer John Panco said.
He got scared, ran out and yelled at others to get out of the building, Panco said. There was no damage, but police arrested Calvin J. Byrd, 24, for reckless burning and booked him into the Lewis County Jail, he said.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
Improvised flamethrower, he had the best of intentions clearing people to safety. What a Boy Scout!
Funny I work for slum lords all the time and have yet too see any Cockroaches. These slums you talk about must be extra nasty.
Sounds good, In the know, but this isn’t about pride, although you have a point about slumlords. It’s about a guy trying to torch a cockroach with a can of Off! and a BIC lighter and things going wrong. I agree with LCCitizen: He shouldn’t have been arrested for this. Sounds like an overreaction on all sides, starting with the guy spotting the cockroach and grabbing for the Off!
He shouldn’t have been arrested…
If landlords actually did their jobs and rented tiny little apartments to very low income people at a reasonable rate, The very low income people, or “lowlifes” as the general public calls them…………….might take some pride in bettering themselves. Try getting a manager with a no drug policy on the premise. Go from there. Weed out the non conformists and we might all have a better team Lewis county.
all I can say is I killed a rather large one down at the beach while camping over the 4th-was the first one I have seen
I have had a reason to be inside that apartment building. The landlord is a slum lord with very sketchy management. The cockroaches are thick in that building. And YES, Cockroaches live in Centralia and everywhere else dumb ass.
arresting people for being Stupid whats next.
Dumbass !
I didn’t even know we had Cockroaches is Wa. State, they must come from down south in peoples belongings. You my friend have won the Darwin Award.