Pennsylvania Woman’s Death Could Spur Passage Of CO Alarm Law

Well, let’s hope the death of Virginia Brecheisen, an 82-year-old woman from East Stroudsberg, Pa., will guarantee passage of a law requiring carbon monoxide detectors to be installed in many homes.

That was sentiment expressed by a writer for the Pocono Record in the wake of Brecheisen’s death last Thursday at her home on Kistler Street. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning on an upper level of her home after leaving her car running in her ground-level garage.

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121020/NEWS/210200330

Pennsylvania State Reps. Mike Carroll and Mario Scavello are co-sponsoring a bill that they expect to pass next year. It mandates that all newly constructed and newly sold homes have carbon monoxide detectors, according to the Pocono Record.

The law would require residential buildings with “a fossil fuel-burning heater or appliance, fireplace or attached garage to have a carbon monoxide alarm installed whenever the building is sold,” according to the Pocono Times.

And multi-family rental units with fossil fuel-burning heating or an attached garage would also have to install carbon monoxide detectors within 12 months of the law passing, the Pocono Times reported.

One of the hitches of the bill is that it doesn’t mandate that current homeowners install carbon monoxide alarms unless they sell their homes.

Those covered under the bill who don’t install or maintain a carbon monoxide alarm can be fined $50, according to the Pocono Record. Anyone who tampers with or takes out the batteries of a carbon monoxide detector in a residential building would be subject to a $500 fine, with a second offense punishable by a $3,000 fine.