I am not renting any more but being an aged care nurse I understand the situation. Relatives who talk about how their aging parent was before they went into care – often relate similar stories. Sounds like a difficult situation when you are the tenant and the impaired person is the owner of the property. I would have thought that the fire brigade would be able to make a report to police. Insurance companies sometimes refuse to pay when there are cases of repeated claims for the same thing. I knew someone who kept crashing his car – over 6 times! The insurance company refused to pay any more. The person went into care but was in denial as were all the relatives except the wife who was copping flack from the relatives who were also “in denial”.
The fact that this owner is “in denial” shouts out to me early dementia. Symptom being – lack of cognition, not being able to recognise the fact that they are endangering themselves and others, leaving the stove on or whatever has caused this. I have seen elderly people put things in microwaves turn them onto one hour or more and then there is a fire. Or the other one is putting metal containers into microwaves. But they always say – nothing wrong with me. Mind your own business.
I would be extremely alarmed at an elderly person causing fires in a shared building. You could be asleep or out and find the place on fire. I would not be worried about “offending anyone” That is nonsense when your life and others is in danger from an impaired person. The executive committee does have a duty of care to make sure that this is not repeated. Sounds like it has already happened once too many times. I don’t know the legal ramifications of living in one of these apartments. All I know is – that person is a hazard and needs an ACAT assesment – that is Aged Care assesment team – the person should have had this done after the fire – the only way this could have happened to get them on the “alert” list is if they went to hospital after the fire with smoke inhalation or similar.
We all think we live in a society where we have rights but in these cases the impaired person is recalcitrant and resistive – and no one is willing to step on someones “rights” when it means they are removed from their home. If you know his relatives you could maybe contact them.
Sounds like he is in decline and will eventually have to go into care, but the very nature of dementia means the person is suspicious, confused, disorientated, forgetful and because they are not aware this is happening – in denial. Someone other than him needs to take action. It might have to be you.