It’s been over six months since our house fire and we have lived in four different places. Right before Christmas 2020, we finally found a rental house and will be staying at it until our renovations are complete in June 2021. Since buying the house, we will have spent less time actually living in it than not. Not a single day has gone by where we don’t think about everything that has happened. In the early weeks after the fire, it came more naturally to focus on gratitude. Thank God nobody was injured during our fire. Thank God our insurance is helping out. Thank God we have incredible support from friends, family, and community. As the months drag on, though, it’s becoming more natural to dwell in bitterness. I hate that it’s true but it just is.
Our fire could have been avoided. It was an accidental electrical fire but it was also inevitable, according to the fire inspector. This declaration did not come as a surprise to us because mere hours after moving into the house, we became suspicious of it. In House Fire Part I, I referenced how on our move-in day, a mover observed sparks by the dryer. We are talking 12 hours after arriving at the house with the Uhaul, we observed an issue.
As the firefighters battled the flames, I sat on my neighbor’s couch with my infant daughter and son, crying, and telling her how we had been trying for months to have these problems fixed at the house. At the moment, all I felt was frustration and anger that the worst-case scenario was actually happening. I felt completely defeated in knowing that we never found the support we needed to have the problems at the house fixed in time. Although we had only inhabited the home for six months, we made every effort we could think of to address the problems we knew about and we just kept hitting a brick wall in our efforts.
Did we know about the issues prior to closing?
I am sure someone reading this is asking themselves this question. Why did we close on the house if it had so many problems? Well, in March, about a month before moving in, Mark drove from Rexburg to Pocatello to meet with the home inspector. Upon arrival, Tristan (the realtor) told Mark he couldn’t follow along on the inspection with Kyle (the inspector). Both Tristan and Kyle knew he was coming but once he arrived, he was told he couldn’t go in. To one of our biggest regrets, Mark conceded and did not do the inspection with Kyle.
I’ll be honest in that I put a lot of pressure on our family to find a home before we would sign another apartment lease. We all fell in love with the backyard at this house and I trusted Kyle to find any major issues. And the housing market is also booming! There are fewer homes available than buyers. The pressure from realtors can be pretty intense as they tell you how the house has 5+ offers already and it will sell quickly. For first-time homebuyers, especially, it’s a lot to take in. You don’t know when another house will hit the market.
Anyway, Kyle gave the house an all-good and checked that there were no concerns with the electrical.
On move-in day, Mark observed that the breaker box was painted shut and I wondered how thorough a job Kyle actually did. We put all our trust in Kyle. The sellers were upset, according to Tristan, and they didn’t want us in the house. We insisted on doing a final walk-through to see that the agreed-upon fixes were complete (they weren’t) but that only lasted 5-10 minutes because the seller didn’t want us there. In retrospect, we obviously would have done a lot differently.
The day we moved in, the water heater died and a plumber had to come out. Two days after moving in, we had an electrician come out to the house. I started to feel like I was Tom Hanks in The Moneypit. Every time we turned around, something was wrong.
We were busy like you wouldn’t believe working outside cleaning up the backyard. The sellers had left some garbage and unwanted items behind. I was about 6 months pregnant and working my butt off in the yard trying to clean up leaves, old dog poop, and trash. We still didn’t have internet or TV and spent very little time inside.
How did we try to fix the issues?
Mark managed to scoot around the attic one day and observed that the original wiring was in poor condition. New wires had been added at some point and nothing was in the appropriate boxes. I have learned that every connection should be inside a metal or plastic “flash box.” This box is supposed to be there to prevent fires. Mark’s concern was unparalleled. I distinctly remember my father-in-law, who lives back in Illinois, ready to jump on a plane so he could see what the issues were that Mark was describing. We talked him out of it, due to the pandemic, but the family was rattled for sure. Mark also observed that all the outlets were reversed and we only had two working GFIs/surge protectors out of seven total. I have also learned that there should be a GFI anywhere that water is present such as bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms. I am not familiar with any of this electrical talk, but Mark has a basic knowledge of how things work and he knew we had problems.
We did have an electrician visit and he stated that the electric box was a fire hazard. He said the company that made our breaker box actually went out of business due to excessive fires. The electrician recommended we have the breaker box redone. He also noted that the circuit to the dryer was a 40amp breaker, with 12 gauge wire, going to a 30 amp receptacle. He never went into the attic because he was there due to the sparks flying out of the receptacle by the dryer.
In April alone, we contacted Kyle upwards of 10-15 times.
On April 20, Kyle came by with his electrician friend and walked the house with Mark to offer a second opinion. Kyle’s friend gave the house an all-good – but he never went into the attic either. They acted like we were being nitpicky. Kyle offered to refund us the money from the inspection. We did not accept it.
On April 29, Kyle was supposed to come by the house but he did not show up.
We had the power company come out to fix the main overhead lines coming into the house because they were not to code.
For most of April and May, we became consumed with tackling a water issue with the downstairs bathroom. The entire month we were going back and forth between the sellers, Kyle, and Tristan about this issue. Nobody would acknowledge it was a known problem despite water stains on the basement floor, mold on the basement trim, and water underneath the tiles in the basement bathroom. Water was literally squishing out of the tile grout when we walked on it one day after it rained outside. Someone recently painted the trim downstairs and new flooring was halfway installed down there when we moved in. Had the flooring been finished, we would not have seen the water stains. As Mark began investigating this issue, he discovered an undocumented window that had been covered up inside the downstairs bathroom. The window wasn’t noted in any inspection reports and is harder to notice because the backyard deck is built above it. To be completely transparent, we were feeling fairly depressed and really angry about how things were turning out.
We also contacted our insurance but we were told that because the issues were pre-existing, the sellers’ insurance needed to cover them. The sellers contacted their insurance but their insurance refused to help. When we contacted the tax assessor’s office about the basement bathroom, we learned there was no record of a finished basement on file. It felt like every avenue we took to try to resolve these issues led to us hitting a brick wall. Nobody wanted to help and we certainly couldn’t afford to re-wire the whole house or re-do the leaking shower in the basement. It would have been at least $10,000 for each to be done. In desperation, we applied for loans but were declined. We didn’t qualify for credit cards. We put our mortgage payments on hold due to the pandemic (I lost my job) but we still did not have near enough to pay for the electrical or plumbing problems. We added secondary insurance for help but the fire happened before those efforts came to fruition.
In July, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, Dorthea.
On October 18, the attic lit on fire.
Stay tuned for the next blog, House Fire Part III, where I will talk about everything that has happened after the fire. I want to share how we were feeling the days immediately after being displaced into a hotel, the shockingly difficult task of finding a rental house, and the process of itemizing our belongings for insurance. We’re six months out since the fire and our house rental is booked until July, so we still have a ways to go until we can return home. After the fire, we learned the home was filled with asbestos so everything in the home had to be gutted. I am nervous about how we will feel when we return. I know there will be a giant relief but I imagine other emotions may come up as well.
To be continued…
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