In July a fire broke out in one building of the Thomasbrook Apartment complex.

Fire officials say the fire was started by an improperly disposed cigarette on one of the balconies.

According to the regional manager of the building, residents in 23 units were displaced because of the fire.

Right now demolition is underway to make way for a brand new building.

Even though the building may be demolished, feelings of frustration and anger still linger for some former tenants.

Today, Cody Smith looked through some of his most prized possessions, including thousands of dollars worth of DVDs and Cd's.

After the fire, Smith was able to salvage some of it, but a lot of his stuff was destroyed.

When he went in to survey the damage the day of the fire, Smith initially thought he was one of the lucky ones.

"Everything was fine. Anything on the floor got went but that was from the fire hoses. Everything on the shelf was fine, all the pictures were still on the wall," said Smith.

Smith says he is frustrated because a lot of his stuff was not initially affected by the fire.

Instead, Smith says his belongings were damaged after his stuff had been exposed to the rain and the elements for nearly a week.

"After a week and two rains, why wouldn't they let us go in then before things got worse," said Smith.

On top of that, Smith says residents who were allowed back into their apartments were only given two hours to collect their stuff.

"For the two hours they scheduled everybody on that floor to get their stuff out in that two hours, so it was chaos. You know, there's like six or seven apartments trying to get their stuff out," said Smith.

But according to Emily Simmons, the regional manager for the complex they always had the residents' best interest at heart.

"I do understand the frustration, I do. And it was again a decision based on the safety of the residents and not for anything else," said Simmons.

Simmons says it took nearly a week to get residents back into their units to get their stuff because it took awhile to get engineers out to inspect the building to make sure it was safe.

"It was a bad situation all around and it is tough not to get frustrated by this stuff which is why it's important to get renters insurance for things like this," said Simmons.