EXCLUSIVE: Filth, chaos, weird religious symbols, feral animals and orgies  – inside Oakland warehouse of horrors before deadly blaze as tenant tells of previous fires

• Exclusive DailyMail.com photographs show the squalor and chaos inside the Oakland warehouse before Friday night fire which left 36 dead
• Tenant in building disclosed images and lengthy written complaint in which she detailed life inside the Ghost Ship ‘collective’ – including more revelations about its organizer, Derick Ion Almena
• Shelley Mack told how he was a control freak who told her off for what she watched on television 
• He let his three children roam free in the cluttered space which was covered with loose wires and where narrow corridors were blocked with junk 
• Centerpiece of his ‘art’ was collection of Hindu mystical imagery – but he ignored basics of the building code and she complained that it was a ‘fire hazard’ 

By Ryan Parry In Oakland, California For Dailymail.com

Published: 12:26 EST, 6 December 2016 | Updated: 13:52 EST, 6 December 2016

‘They were small fires. There were no sprinklers so everybody was just aware, if you smelled smoke you would go look and put it out.

‘They were isolated fires, a transponder blew up and electrical sockets got overloaded, everybody was very aware that the place was a fire hazard, it was filled with old dried wood and wooden furniture.

‘There were power cords and extension cords hooked up to extension cords everywhere. To get across all the place to heat and light all the trailers. Everybody would plug in and they’d get overloaded, refrigerators and microwaves and cell phones, lots of electrical equipment and massive stereo equipment, any system would have been overloaded.’  

Mack even described being disturbed by two people having sex on top of her trailer in the middle of the night.

She recalls: ‘There was a sex orgy, like a swingers party held here on New Year’s Eve 2014/15.  They rented the place out for it and I said no, other people said no but they still went ahead and there was like 2-300 people, two floors of people. 

‘They had blocked my area off and the music was so loud you couldn’t really hear stuff but they were rocking my trailer.

‘I had to go out and tell them to get off my trailer, they were having sex up there.’

Mack said the organizers of the sex party didn’t clean up properly and used condoms were found littered on the floor.

She said: ‘All the carpets and furniture you see in the photos have either been p***ed on by cats or were used in the orgy.’

Inside was a picture of squalid chaos. The filthy floors offer little space to move and corridors are like narrow rat runs. Nails protrude from rickety stairs and brick-work crumbles in the walls.

The footage, shot by former tenant Shelley Mack, shows her stepping over junk and trash as she tries to negotiate the hall ways before reaching a set of stairs made out of what looks like reclaimed wood.

It’s believed several people lived inside the Ghost Ship including some in an indoor ‘RV park’.

Visitors have described a squalid scene where cat faeces and used condoms are found on the floor and junk and ‘art’ is piled high in every room.

Mack found the rental in an ad on Facebook two years ago.

She paid $595 a month in rent, along with a security deposit of the same amount and a one-time payment of around $700 towards fixing the building up – work she says never happened.

She says life there was hell. It was often freezing cold, water and power were sometimes stolen from neighbors, who would get angry and shut them off.

Once, a generator blew up, and residents quickly doused the flames, she said.

Mack explained that she didn’t know the ramshackle dwelling was illegal until months after she moved in. She was instructed to tell visitors it was a 24-hour workspace for artists.

When inspectors or other outsiders came to visit, she and other residents scurried to hide clothes, bedding and other evidence anyone was living there.

‘It’s a good example of people taking advantage of people because they had no other options,’ said Mack.

‘Every month it was more money but then there was no electricity, no heat, no water a lot of the time, it would get cut off.

‘Every month there would be a calamity, blowing the transformers, intermittent electricity, arguments, fights, crime, anytime people didn’t go along with Derick Almena the operator he found a way to get them in trouble with the police.

‘The place was a death-trap, a fire hazard. There was electrical cords running through there illegally. Massive extension cords attached to extension cords. Heavy music equipment.

‘To be honest I didn’t think it was going to last this long before it went up or somebody shut it down.’

Mack recalls how one doorway was blocked because it led to the property of a neighbor who’d been in a dispute with the operators.

The 58-year-old jewelry maker who lived there for four or five months leaving in February, 2015, became so angry at the conditions that she began to log the problems.

She made a video and took photos and wrote a list of her grievances.

In the document she shared with DailyMail.com she states: ‘I can’t count the times I have woken up with no heat and had difficulty breathing.

‘I can’t stay outside the trailer in the evenings or at night it’s just too cold. I know you said you had propane torchieres but are they safe indoors?’

In another log she writes: ‘We have umpteen people now and guests sharing one bathroom upstairs after 2 months. We have lost the bathroom and sink in this building so now all that is left is the small sink in the bathroom for everything.’

She says there isn’t even a sink to wash dishes, adding: ‘I feel like I am living in a 3rd world country with no running water in this building.’

Chillingly, Mack also details her concerns over fire safety in the converted warehouse, she wrote: ‘We need smoke detectors. An escape plan for fire, earthquake. The hallways and doorways and stairways cleared and kept cleared. I need a way to secure my things.’

She also wrote that the common areas were a fire hazard.

‘The buy in is to use and maintain common areas but they are always full of junk. Sometimes completely blocking the bathrooms or doors which is dangerous and a fire hazard.

‘They have been full of rotating in common as well as hallways, stairs and every nook and cranny. Clothes have been on the floor everywhere upstairs.’

Mack continues detailing how she wants ‘peace and enjoyment’ of her space.

She wrote: ‘No yelling abusive language or actions. No personal disagreements disputed publicly. No shutting off utilities, access to bathroom facilities, heat because of a dispute, or personality conflict. 

‘No one coming into my space touching or taking or turning my things off or on without my permission… all this angst and chaos isn’t working for anyone and certainly not getting the desired results.’

Disturbingly Mack also complains about a fellow tenant called Lisa – a woman she says is operator Derick Almena’s right hand woman.

 ‘Lisa is complaining about the tv but I’m not coming to you complaining when she is dripping blood in the sitting room after coming back from one of her rituals?’

She also complains about Almena turning off her TV and says the kids living in the commune are often unsupervised and they leave garbage and toys everywhere.

She wrote: ‘I don’t want to come home to work to a room full of kids with garbage and food and toys everywhere or no kids and their garbage and toys. And the screaming has to stop or the visits stop.’

Danielle Boudreaux, who has known Almena and his wife Micah Allison for eight years, said the property became more and more squalid as time went on.

She told DailyMail.com: ‘There were piles of wood with nails sticking out, cat faeces, tall piles of laundry of mildewed clothes, there would be food all over the place.

‘Most of the windows on the bottom floor were blacked out from the plies of wood and everything.

‘People are calling it a staircase but would you call a jungle gym a staircase? It was crates.

‘He at one point cleaned out a piano store, 35 pianos and six organs, and they were all in there.’