SAN DIEGO COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : The Wrong Way to Clean House

Right now, the Mission Valley Inn may have the safest wall heaters of any motel in San Diego. But it took a death and an outside inspection to get them cleaned up.

After Canadian athlete Cory Korosi died of carbon monoxide poisoning and another athlete was found unconscious in the Inn on New Year’s Day, the hotel inspected its wall heaters and announced them to be safe. But follow-up checks by the city found faulty heaters in 36 of the hotel’s 210 rooms.

The city also found several nonfunctioning smoke alarms.

The hotel apparently will not be fined or charged with criminal liability. The Building Inspections Department said the hotel addressed the problem rapidly. But acting quickly after a death hardly seems adequate.

There is be no ordinance requiring heater inspections. But under the city housing code, hotels are required to maintain equipment in safe condition.

Obviously, the Mission Valley Inn did not do that, despite how well-known this hazard is. Every fall, San Diego Gas & Electric puts on a public information campaign warning of the lethal dangers of dirty wall heaters. And the warnings are reinforced when deaths occur from poorly maintained ones.

So it’s unfathomable that, in winter, a hotel would be found to have 36 dirty heaters.

If the traveling public is to rest assured in San Diego hotels, more questions need to be asked about this case and the enforcement of safety laws.