On Sunday, April 27, three roommates in New York City discovered a kitchen cabinet had come loose from the wall and fallen to the floor.
Christine Covord
Kitchen cabinets fall to the floor in New York City.
On Sunday, April 27, Ben Jardine was suddenly awakened at 5:15 a.m. by a deafening bang.
Jardine, a 28-year-old comedian who lives in a four-unit townhouse in Brooklyn Heights with her two roommates, Liz Butler, 30, and Christine Covoud, 26, immediately feared someone had broken into their home.
“Oh my God,” he exclaimed when he walked into the kitchen and saw the cabinets strewn across the floor, he recalled in an exclusive interview with People magazine.
“It was just surreal to see that happen,” he said, describing the moment all the cabinets came undone from the wall and collapsed.
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Christine Covord
Kristin Kovoud photographed the kitchen collapse.
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Kovod, who works as a video editor, encountered the chaos shortly after Jardine. She was sleeping next to her boyfriend and was woken up by the noise. “We just jumped into each other's arms and went crazy,” she joked.
“It sounded like a car was crashing into our building,” added Kobord, who moved into the apartment in November 2023 with two roommates.
Fellow comedian Butler was the last to find out about the kitchen disaster when Jardine ran into the room and said: “The kitchen is on the floor.”
Butler was in tears when she first walked into the kitchen after hearing the news.
“All the fragile items that we treasured in our home are in that cupboard. Some of the plates and stuff are still there, but all the mugs are gone,” she said. “Lots of bowls, lots of precious faces. All the glassware has been shattered, the family crockery has been destroyed.”
After the incident, Kovod shared a video of the aftermath on social media, and the TikTok quickly gained more than 2 million views, encouraging others to share similar experiences.
The roommates reported the incident to the people living downstairs, who then checked their own cupboards, which they discovered were also leaning away from the wall.
“Sometimes the only way to deal with it is to take it in stride,” Jardine said. “It's like you have to make lemonade, because there are a lot of lemons out there right now.”
Christine Covord
Ben Jardine stands in his kitchen after a cabinet falls over.
The friends added that they have also begun compiling a list of all the items damaged in the crash and their value, which so far has totaled more than $2,000.
“We love this neighborhood and it's a dream to live here,” Kovoud said. “The apartment is great, so that's why it's such a shock. We never expected something like this to happen on a Sunday morning.”
Mr Cobord added: “If this had happened an hour later, Ben would have been making coffee. Someone could have been seriously injured or killed.”
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