No fines were levied for the violations, Brennan said. The city's Land Use Ordinance allows up to five unrelated people to live together in a single-family residence, Brennan said.

UNCERTAINTY

There was initial confusion yesterday over the number of residents because tenants tended to come and go and might have been subleasing units or entertaining friends, Seelig said.

"The woman that owns the house, and her daughter and grandson were home (when the fire broke out) and left," Seelig said. "There were also five renters: Two of them were accounted for and three weren't. The three that weren't accounted for are the ones that we're working with police to locate. We found two" bodies, and firefighters hope there isn't another one.

After bringing the fire under control, firefighters placed a ladder against the outside of the wobbly, charred remains of the home and peered in through a window of one of the upper-level bedrooms, Seelig said.

There, they spotted what appeared to be a man's body — followed by the discovery of what appeared to be a woman's body. Both were burned beyond recognition, Seelig said.

The Honolulu medical examiner's office did not release identities of the dead yesterday and said autopsies are likely to be conducted today.

'DRUNK, BAD DRUNK'

Stephen Bartlett told KGMB9 that the woman was his estranged wife, Christy Ray Sasaki Bartlett.

"All I can say is yesterday she came by my house and she was drunk, bad drunk raising hell about my moped that was stolen on Monday," Bartlett told KGMB9.

Fleur, 77, said she believes the two bodies discovered inside her home are the remains of her two tenants, a male and a female, who were in an argument that she believes was fueled by alcohol and marijuana.

The man, Fleur said, "had medicinal weed because he had a back injury and the other one seemed drunk. It was just a big relationship mess."

Accusations flew back and forth between the two tenants and her grandson, Ikaika, over the missing moped, Fleur said.

The moped belonged to the woman's estranged husband, who would use it to come to visit almost every day, Fleur said. The woman was upset and began accusing people in the house, Fleur said.

Referring to the male and female tenants she believed died in the fire, Fleur said, "One was very angry with my grandson and one was very, very, very angry with me because I refused to allow him to use his deposit for his last month's rent. It's against the code but I had to point this out to him, and he was very unforgiving, very angry about that."

Fleur was asleep when fire alarms woke her. She escaped with only the clothes on her back.

Outside, neighbors turned their garden hoses onto her home. Fleur's water pipes were too hot to turn on her own water supply.

ROOMS RENTED

Fleur rented rooms in her home to supplement her part-time income at rates that ranged from $495 to $1,400 for a separate studio.

Rick Smith paid $700 a month to rent a room for two years, until he was asked to leave eight months ago after getting into an argument with Fleur's daughter, Mara.

"When I was there, there was some arguing," Smith said. "But considering as many people lived there as they did, it was nice. I miss living in that house.

"I had to leave when me and Mara got into an argument," Smith said. "It's a good thing I did."

The home was so badly damaged by the blaze that firefighters feared it would collapse before they could remove the bodies. The city's Department of Emergency Services provided lumber so the Honolulu Fire Department's Urban Search and Rescue unit could shore up the structure before entering and removing the bodies at 12:30 p.m.

A damage estimate was hard to come by yesterday because it was difficult to determine the actual size of what Fleur said was a six-bedroom, three-story structure.

"This was a very tricky house because of all of the additions on it," Seelig said.

The home originally was built in 1952 as a single-story, 1,342-square-foot house, according to city property records. A second story was added in 1970, expanding the house to four bedrooms and four bathrooms, totaling 3,047 square feet, according to property records.

This year, the city assess- ed its value at $1.2 million.

'YELLING, SWEARING'

Neighbors Rick Burke and Maria Torcia-Burke had never heard any commotion coming from the home before yesterday.

They were asleep when Torcia-Burke was awakened by the sounds of an argument.

"I heard a woman mostly — yelling, swearing," Torcia-Burke said.

She then woke up Burke before going into their bathroom. When Torcia-Burke emerged, the couple's normally gorgeous view of the Honolulu skyline was ablaze in orange from the fire.

"Oh my God, there's a fire," Burke remembered his wife saying. "Within five minutes, the whole thing was up in flames. By the time the firemen got here, it was really blazing. It's tragic to me that people were inside."

Some 40 firefighters from five engine companies, two ladder companies and a rescue unit responded to the call at 12:20 a.m. and found the house fully engulfed, Seelig said.

Mei-Mei Engel, who lives next door, said her husband woke her and told her to get herself and the couple's two sons out of the house.

"It was the most terrifying experience I have ever had," Engel said. "The embers from the fire were falling on my house like orange rain.

"I saw some flame when I closed the windows in the first bedroom, and in the short time it took me to get to the windows in the second bedroom, the whole house had become engulfed in flames," Engel said.

In a scene that Engel described as "total confusion," she lost track of her husband and told firefighters: "I don't care about the house, I just care about my husband."

She later learned that he was down the slope from the main portion of her house, wetting down the roof of a lower portion.

Fleur, who lost a son three years ago, said she never thought she would lose her home in a fire.

"I thought I would die before my home did, but my home is pretty dead now," she said. "But that's no grievance. At least we have our lives. I will survive."