So, the weekend was scary and crazy. Friday night, my rental house burned down. Right now, they don't know why. The tenants all got out, which the Fire Marshall says is a miracle. The fire got into the attic immediately and burned across and the roof collapsed into the house.
We spent the weekend trying to get them situated, get them clothes, etc. I"m still a bit in shock, and not sure what to do or how long all this will take.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Yikes. Do they have renters insurance? That would help them.
The MIL lived with them and was on the Lease. She had a small policy. My lease requires renter's insurance, so they got it, but got the minimum policy coverage - $10,000 contents.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
A flock of flirting flamingos is pure, passionate, pink pandemonium-a frenetic flamingle-mangle-a discordant discotheque of delirious dancing, flamboyant feathers, and flamingo lingo.
Have to meet with the insurance person today. Their computer assigned it to someone who was on vacation so our agent had to get that fixed this morning. They will be there this afternoon.
The Fire Marshall has absolutely no clue. He said he is boggled. All the neighbors say they heard an explosion, but there is no evidence of one. He can't find a heat source or anything where the fire started. There was one light fixture, but that was not it. There was not a gas line on that side of the house - the only gas was at the fire place and that is not where it started.
The one neighbor said he has had to call the police on a couple of teen boys in the neighborhood for playing with fire and causing small explosions with black powder. The fire marshall is going to look into that.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Sorry to hear about this. Fire is really scary. Glad everyone got out, but it is too bad they lost everything. And all the paperwork, etc. that you are going through, LL, I am sure it is really a big headache...
I'm so sorry, LL. I'm glad that everyone is ok though. Sucks you have to go through all this with the insurance, etc. Hope it settles quickly and they find what / how it started. Hopefully it wasn't the teen boys.
It was not the boys. They were not there that night at all.
Causes and origins specialists will be there tomorrow. They seem confident they will find the cause. Right now, the only thing the fire marshal says he can't rule out is smoking. They were not allowed to smoke in the house - that's in my lease, but would smoke out on the front porch and that is where the fire started. He hasn't listed that as the cause, though, because no one had been out there in over an hour and a half before the fire, and he didn't find any butts. But it could have smoldered and started the fire in the bushes next to the porch.
I hope it wasn't the smoking. The insurance company said they will go after the tenants for negligence if that is the case. I don't know how the renter's insurance will handle that.
My next lease will say no smoking anywhere on the premises, and will require renters to have contents insurance of at least $25,000.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
I've already told the Mom. She was not surprised, but the ones who actually did it are being very defensive about it. That couldn't be it, they were careful, yada.....
There is no point in being pissed. It won't help anything. They didn't do it on purpose, and they are paying dearly for it. Besides, pretty sure the MIL did it, and she's a 100% disabled veteran with brain damage.
Besides that, these are my friends, - their teenage daughter is DD14's best friend, and I'm just so grateful they didn't die, I can't be mad.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
