Philadelphia Fire Escape on a Duplex

[Joe White]

We have a tenant we are evicting and she contacted L & I to be vendictive.
Basically we can't renovate till she gone so the place has safety issues.

The agent was very understanding; but had to write a violation for a missing fire escape we had removed as it was falling down. They say it needs to be replaced.

I know zero about this. I'm hoping some one has experience in this. Either with fire escape inspectors / installers?

Or fighting the L & I requirement for a fire escape on a duplex.

[Joe White]

@Steve Babiak it turned out badly. I cut the fire escape down, as the block was all built by the same developer and none of the other homes had fire escapes & duplexes don't need them. I thought I would cut it down, take the door out and put in a window - no one would know. 

Of course that was foolish as L & I found out. They do not want you to "downgrade your safety", so it was a fight to get them to approve this to not have an escape. Eventually they did give the go ahead; but they held this up for sometime.