Residents of a large loft building at 345 Eldert Street, home to artists for many years, have been served with a partial vacate order by the fire department. The tenants in 41 of the 76 units — up to 160 people — have been ordered to leave their apartments by 9pm tonight.

Resident Beth Hommel told BushwickBK that inspectors came Tuesday to look at units in the building. Wednesday, Carnegie Management, the building’s owners, informed tenants inspectors would return. Inspectors came yet again this morning.

“I let them in at 10am and they didn’t say anything was wrong, but when my roommate left at 2pm there was a vacate notice on our door.”

The Dept. of Buildings lists 345 Eldert, a former manufacturing building, as a legal residence. Violations recorded recently include illegal and poorly built mezzanines, illegal plumbing, blocked sprinklers, and blocked egress.

Hommel says that her mezzanine had been there for some five years, before she moved in. It and another construction in her unit will have to be demolished before she can move back in. “We’ll lose more than 1/3 of the sq footage of the place,” she said.

“Sucks that the FDNY would rather see us on the street than in our terrible, deadly apartments,” said Hommel. She dismissed any notion that the landlord would be using FDNY to clear the building for new tenants. “The rent in this place is already much higher than a lot of loft buildings. Ha. I thought it was worth it to avoid this situation.”

Another resident, Kallie Weinkle, will be staying along with her three roommates with friends in unaffected units in the building. She told BushwickBK that the tenants were originally told that they would be able to stay in their units as long as the management paid eight fire sentries — two per floor — to keep watch 24 hours a day. Then today, “the story changed,” Weinkle said. “They slapped noticed on our doors saying our units were ‘imminently perilous to life.’”

Weinkle described a scene of chaos as the Carnegie demolition crew began tearing one of her two adjoining loft units apart; the other was declared safe. Later, a new set of inspectors said the half-demolished unit was actually fine, and it was in fact the second unit that was unsafe.

At this point, Weinkle said, tenants on the floor above threw several rolls of paper out the window to the street below. “This pissed the fire chief off, he said they were disrespectful. ‘No matter what you do, even if you take out the violations — we’re kicking you out no matter what,’” she quoted the fire chief.

Hommel credits Carnegie with trying to get the units up to code before 9pm so that none of the tenants have to be kicked out. “I don’t have the exact details on what’s going on there right now,” said an employee at the Carnegie office, “but I know the manager is there working hard to get everything done.”

The building’s super said rent would be credited to affected units.

Carnegie also manages the McKibbin lofts in East Williamsburg, a few other properties in Bushwick, and a loft in the Bronx.

FDNY won’t reinspect until tomorrow morning, so the affected tenants will not be allowed to stay in their units even if all the work is completed before 9 tonight.

A press contact at the Red Cross told BushwickBK the organization has met with 85 tenants, and that 40 have accepted their offer of nearby motel rooms. Hommel and her roommate will be staying on a friend’s couch tonight.

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