Document your belongings please. A fire is very devastating
Talensnana said
10:56 PM Jan 23, 2016
PLEASE READ THIS in a effort to protect your home and belongings. I want every on learn from our tragedy.
On December 25, 2015 my husband and i loaded our parrots into he RV and headed to our youngest daughters house to spend some time with them and our grandsons for the holiday. We were set to come back home on the 4th of January 2016 after we had lunch together to celebrate my birthday.
Plans change and sometimes very abruptly. At 430 am our daughter called and said our house is gone. I pulled up the local news on my laptop and sure enough our beautiful house was totally engulfed in flames. We go up and drove the hour from her house to our house in time to see 3 fire departments trying to put out our house fire. It took them 4 hours to contain the fire. Because the fire started in the basement and burned for a few hours before it took over the house. We lost everything. The second and first floors caved into the basement because it was so hot and powerful that it bent a main steel support beam for the house.
Now we are having to go through a very painful project of trying to itemize everything we lost along with trying to remember when the items were purchased. Fortunately 1 year earlier we had read a email saying you should video tape your home. Last yesr we were loaded and ready for a 3 week Rv trip but we took 15 minutes and did a walk through with a video camera.
Although this video helps, since we did not open any closets, cabinets or drawers we are having to guess. This has been a very tedious and stressful situation. Fortunately we have some amazing people helping us as we had a very unique and larger home.
Please take a good video going slowly and opening cabinets and closets. Take close up pictures of things which were valuable.
I hope none of you ever have to do this. If you do, please learn from our lack of preparation. Just store the pictures and/or video someplace other than in your house. Here you can see a few pictures of the devastation.
We will never know the cause of our fire as it has been classified "undetermined". They do know it most likely started in the basement electrical room.
We are very glad we were not home as it would not have been a good outcome.
jayc said
08:48 AM Jan 24, 2016
Sorry to hear this. I've been recommending this for years. As a retired Burglary and Theft Detective, I can't tell you the number of stolen items that could have been recovered if there were some way to positively identify them. It works the same for a fire or other catastrophic loss.
Good luck.
Jo And Craig said
12:41 PM Jan 24, 2016
So sorry for your devastating loss, Patti and Ed, and I'm glad you took the parrots with you! My heart goes out to you. When I flew home for Thanksgiving, the house across the street from my mom burned. We are actually the ones who called 9-1-1. Pretty incredible scene. I can only imagine. Best of luck to you both. With God's grace you get through this. Ask me how I know! Thanks for the "heads up"!
SuzieQ said
08:23 PM Jan 27, 2016
Sorry to hear of your loss.
My Dad was an insurance adjuster. He taught me the same thing. We'd take pictures every couple of years and put them in the safe deposit box.
rodeojoe said
01:44 PM Jan 28, 2016
I am so sorry to hear about your loss. I agree, take pictures/videos and document everything because you just never know what may happen. Better to always be protected.
PLEASE READ THIS in a effort to protect your home and belongings. I want every on learn from our tragedy.
On December 25, 2015 my husband and i loaded our parrots into he RV and headed to our youngest daughters house to spend some time with them and our grandsons for the holiday. We were set to come back home on the 4th of January 2016 after we had lunch together to celebrate my birthday.
Plans change and sometimes very abruptly. At 430 am our daughter called and said our house is gone. I pulled up the local news on my laptop and sure enough our beautiful house was totally engulfed in flames. We go up and drove the hour from her house to our house in time to see 3 fire departments trying to put out our house fire. It took them 4 hours to contain the fire. Because the fire started in the basement and burned for a few hours before it took over the house. We lost everything. The second and first floors caved into the basement because it was so hot and powerful that it bent a main steel support beam for the house.
Now we are having to go through a very painful project of trying to itemize everything we lost along with trying to remember when the items were purchased. Fortunately 1 year earlier we had read a email saying you should video tape your home. Last yesr we were loaded and ready for a 3 week Rv trip but we took 15 minutes and did a walk through with a video camera.
Although this video helps, since we did not open any closets, cabinets or drawers we are having to guess. This has been a very tedious and stressful situation. Fortunately we have some amazing people helping us as we had a very unique and larger home.
Please take a good video going slowly and opening cabinets and closets. Take close up pictures of things which were valuable.
I hope none of you ever have to do this. If you do, please learn from our lack of preparation. Just store the pictures and/or video someplace other than in your house. Here you can see a few pictures of the devastation.
We will never know the cause of our fire as it has been classified "undetermined". They do know it most likely started in the basement electrical room.
We are very glad we were not home as it would not have been a good outcome.
Sorry to hear this. I've been recommending this for years. As a retired Burglary and Theft Detective, I can't tell you the number of stolen items that could have been recovered if there were some way to positively identify them. It works the same for a fire or other catastrophic loss.
Good luck.
So sorry for your devastating loss, Patti and Ed, and I'm glad you took the parrots with you! My heart goes out to you. When I flew home for Thanksgiving, the house across the street from my mom burned. We are actually the ones who called 9-1-1. Pretty incredible scene. I can only imagine. Best of luck to you both. With God's grace you get through this. Ask me how I know! Thanks for the "heads up"!
My Dad was an insurance adjuster. He taught me the same thing. We'd take pictures every couple of years and put them in the safe deposit box.