Sam Balto and Ari Rodenstein sat calmly at their computers in a Hartwick Tower apartment early Friday morning, while a roaring fire engulfed the unit just feet above their heads.

No alarms sounded. No smoke filled the room. There was no warning to the danger overhead, until, Balto said, “This kid ran in and just was like, ‘Get the f— out, there’s a fire.'”

An overheated electrical cord sparked the blaze that displaced Balto, Rodenstein and a third roommate, and has left them bouncing from one friend’s couch to another since Friday.

The blaze forced firefighters to spray gallons of water that leaked into Balto and Rodenstein’s living room, soaking the carpet and filling the room with the stench of mildew.

Heat melted two three-foot-wide patches of plaster and paint in the ceiling of both the living room and kitchen, sending bits of debris tumbling to the floor.

The trio planned to move into a hotel last night, where they expect to stay until their apartment becomes more livable.

“An adjuster from the insurance company is going to come look at the apartment tomorrow, but if the person isn’t coming until tomorrow, who knows when they will come and fix it,” Rodenstein said last night. “We haven’t gotten any guarantees from anybody about when this place will be decent again.”

On the patio outside Rodenstein’s bedroom sit piles of ash and charred debris from the gutted third-floor apartment where the blaze began.

Both Balto and Rodenstein said they were pleased the fire didn’t cause more damage, but it still rendered their home uninhabitable.

In between crashing at friend’s houses, Balto and Rodenstein have returned to the apartment to clean up trash, set up fans to air out the damp living room, and light a “meadows & rain” scented candle to mask the lingering odor.

The landlord told them to leave much of the apartment untouched so an insurance adjuster can see the full extent of the damage, but Balto said, “We had to do something.”

A press release after the fire said the displaced occupants would be assisted by the Prince George’s County Office of Emergency Management, which Mark Brady, spokesman for the Prince George’s County Fire Department, said works with the Red Cross to provide aide to the victims of emergencies like Friday’s fire.

However, no one from the office has contacted Balto or his roommates. Balto didn’t even know the service was available until a reporter asked what help he had received.

“I don’t know what the circumstances were, why they weren’t, if the apartment’s being cleaned up,” said Brady. “I don’t know that because it’s not a fire department issue.”

An official in the Office of Emergency Management could not be reached over the weekend.

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