The owners of properties struck by Sunday morning’s blaze are still waiting for word on the buildings’ futures.

NorthSteppe Realty manages two of the houses affected by the fire, but West Oakland Rentals owns them. The company owns 64 E. 17th Ave.

Douglas Graff, spokesman for NorthSteppe Realty, said he met with city inspectors yesterday morning to discuss the damage.

“City inspectors have not given any word on what they will do,” he said. “Because the building is brick there is a possibility it can be rebuilt. However structural review has not been set yet.”

He said the moment the building is returned to NorthSteppe from police investigators, city inspectors will continue their investigation and make a decision in a week or two.

According to Graff, the fire marshal estimated the total damage to be $250,000, an accurate number.

The other neighboring property, owned by Inn-Town Homes, was damaged when the roof collapsed on the east side of the apartment complex.

Richard Talbott, co-owner of Inn-Town Homes, said it is too early to estimate the total damage caused by the fire.

“We need to get everything out of the apartment before we will be able to tell,” he said. “Water damage does not reveal itself for a few days.”

The property of 64 E. 17th Ave. is licensed by the city of Columbus as a rooming house.

Talbott said a rooming house is a building where each person has a rental arrangement independent from the other people living there.

“An apartment is rented as one entity. Even if it has five bedrooms it is still considered one entity. If a rooming house has 15 rooms, those are rented out separately,” he said.

Graff said NorthSteppe has 12 individual leases signed by those who lived in the house. He said the residents were planning on renewing their lease contracts for next year.

According to Graff, no unusual complaints were ever reported to NorthSteppe concerning the residents’ behavior.

“They seemed to be a good group of kids,” he said. “And as any campus house, they had parties but nothing different or unusual.”

Fire inspector Lee Johnson said inspection of the OSU campus does not include the off-campus community.

According to Johnson, off-campus is considered residential and the Columbus Division of Fire cannot inspect a house unless invited to do so.

Each year, rooming house owners are not only obligated to invite a fire inspector to inspect their property, but also must pay an annual fee for a rooming house license, Talbott said.

Owners of the 64 E. 17th Ave. property have been following all the rules, Graff said.

Last April, the property owner asked for an inspection, and the building structure complied with all of the city codes.

Johnson has inspected rooming houses, like the one on East 17th Avenue, and he knows how the procedure is done.

“We start from the outside looking for any hazardous material,” Johnson explained. “Then start in the basement and go up through the house looking for any flammable materials.”

He said an inspector must make sure the exit signs are highly visible and not blocked by any objects.

Johnson said that the next procedure is to go through each room and look at the housekeeping.

“Housekeeping is the amount of trash and debris found in the house. If there is a lot of debris and refuge, then the house is considered hazardous,” he said.

Fire protective equipment, such as sprinklers and smoke detectors, are checked to make sure they are in working order. Looking at the wiring of the detectors and pushing the test buttons determines the function level, Johnson said.

Johnson added that records are kept with each inspection.

According to NorthSteppe, the building was equipped with six fire detectors and four fire extinguishers, all of which were in working order.