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Our apartment fire! *pics*


Austenp405

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So, Sunday morning I am out of town, and the cell phone rings. When I answer the woman identifies herself as working for State Farm's 24 hour hotline, calling to tell me that my apartment building has caught on fire, but she doesn't have any other details. So, I call the apartment complex, and the manager says "There's nothing left of the middle of your building (mine and three other apartments)." On the drive back, we set up a claim number through our insurance, and come up with several pages of items that were in the living room alone.

They were still investigating the cause of the fire, and I realize we had just been given a high-powered tv antenna, that it had been left plugged in, we probably just burned down our neighbors' houses, and every other thing that goes through your mind when something like this happens. By the time we get home, though, it was obvious the fire didn't start in our apartment. This is the view we were greeted by:

 

Our entryway:

Oldhomesmall.jpg

 

The view from the back:

backsmall.jpg

 

Our unit is the one in the bottom left. The other three were completely destroyed.

 

The fire was started in the unit next to ours when our 82 year old neighbor fell asleep smoking. Her bed caught on fire (picture below) and she got out of the house. The tennants above her smelled smoke and saw her pacing outside the building. After saying her bed was on fire, he grabbed the guy living above me, and they both went down stairs with extinguishers, but by that time flames were pouring out of the bedroom. The building was evacuated, and the fire quickly spread to the unit above it, and then through the walls into the apartment above mine. We must have been living right, because we were unscathed, with the exception of some smoke and water damage. You could see where the fire had burned each stud on the wall that seperated our apartment from the one the fire started in (see picture).

 

chairandbedsmall.jpg

 

wallstudssmall.jpg

 

We were the only ones not accounted for, so the guy above us kicked our door in (pic below) and then searched in every room, including the closets, to make sure we weren't home. The fire was so hot that it actually melted the aluminum frame of the window. It is the 'drip' in the right side of the window picture. Two fire departments arrived, and put the flames out in about an hour.

 

frontdoorsmall.jpg

 

Windowsmall.jpg

 

Everyone in the building was unharmed and relocated to vacant apartments in the same complex, but not everyone had something to move. The people above the old woman's apartment did not have insurance, and their unit was a total loss. She also did not have insurance and was moved to a nursing home, we think, since she could obviously not take care of herself. All of our stuff needs thorough cleaning, which we have contracted a fire restoration company to do, and it's going to be paid for by our insurance. IF YOU DON'T HAVE RENTERS' OR HOMEOWNERS' INSURANCE, GET IT TODAY!!! It will obviously take time to get our stuff cleaned, so this is what our new 'well furnished home' looks like:

 

newhomesmall.jpg

 

 

And both Z's were safe. :)

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Renter's insurance is a good idea, especially if you value your possessions. Make that list complete!!! Hopefully you'll be reimbursed for everything properly. Most people forget everything that was affected (like clothes for example) and realize they've been shorted for the most part once the check arrives. A couple of suits is $1000. A few of your lady's bra's are $150 easy, maybe more. Hopefully most of your things can be salvaged. Wish you the best.

 

Davy

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I'd say you came out of that very well. I'm a fire fighter in a small town and the water alone just saturates everything, then you add on the smoke and heat and most people are left with very little to salvage even after a small fire in a single room.

 

A while back we were called to assist at an apartment fire (our town is 99% single family homes). It was an eight unit building, two story with a large open stairway that ran up the middle. In a top floor apartment some knuckle head had setup a small growing opperation in a closet. The lights fell over or overheated (or something) and lit off the bedroom. 20 minutes later the apartment was gutted, the one next door was fully of smoke and very hot. The unit below was like a smokey wading pool.

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Thanks for your concerns everyone. We are dealing with the insurance companies right now, and things are going smoothly. Right now we are still without furniture, though we are renting a couch, chair, plasma tv, dvd, microwave, etc, all on State Farm's bill. The adjusters were surprisingly easy to deal with, allowing us to use our own cleaners instead of the ones they are allianced with. They also wrote us a sizable check so that we have money to get by on, are paying for all our meals, and helping us total stuff up, including items we had never thought of. We discussed the food that was in our fridge and freezers since the power was shut off, and they said it sounded a little low. Our initial guess was around $200 in food, but after talking it over with them, we settled on $450. We could also have gotten a hotel room, had we wanted to, but we decided to move into our new place instead.

 

I will repeat it. IF YOU DON'T HAVE INSURANCE, GET IT!!! My premium was a whole $12 a month after the multi-line discounts, and we have almost $54,000 in coverage. If we had not had coverage, I can't imagine how much worse things would be.

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