Halifax building inspectors are looking over a house where a deck collapsed early Saturday morning to ensure the rest of the building in safe.

A security guard was on site Monday to keep pedestrians from wandering onto the property on Brussels Street.

Police were called to the home around 2 a.m. Saturday. Investigators say there were seven people on the third-storey deck when it collapsed onto the second-storey deck below.

“I heard a loud screech and a bang and I thought it was just a car accident,” says neighbour Ryan Frizell. “Then I heard a sound like brakes grinding against the ground.”

Seven people were injured in the collapse and some remain in hospital.

Some area residents say they have had concerns about the safety of the deck for at least a year, and police say they are investigating the incident as a possible case of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

In March 2013, police issued tickets to partygoers at the same home. Different tenants live there now, but an officer had expressed concerns about the deck at the time.

“An officer at the scene noted concern about the number of individuals using the deck at the time,” says Halifax Regional Police Const. Pierre Bourdages. “At that time there was in excess of 20 people on that deck and that was brought to the attention of the tenant at that time.”

A tenant in another building handled by the same property manager says she has received an email that her building will also be inspected.

“They just said that they took it upon themselves to hire a structural engineer, just to double check all of the properties that they manage to make sure nothing else like this happened,” says tenant Emma Langlois.

City officials say the deck would have had to pass inspection when the house was expanded in 2002. The building code was amended in 2008 to a higher standard for deck construction.