Last fire update...and a few more pointers

I don’t want to keep posting about the fire as it’s somewhat depressing and I’m sure it gets monotonous, but there are just a couple more things that I want to share. If anything “good” can come out of it, I hope it will be that it will be that others can learn from my mom’s unfortunate circumstances. The picture I posted is what used to be the TV room and on the other side of the framing is what was called “Becky’s room” because it contained my old bedroom furniture (taken by my friend Matthew).

Just in case you didn’t think people could get any worse, the mother of the child that burned down the house, apparently showed up on the property on Friday morning and told the neighbors that she was there to “scavenge.” What she thought she might have left, I do not know. The neighbors called my mom, who then had to call the police and go down there herself to have the woman escorted off the property. My mom told her that if she ever comes to the property again, she will be arrested and Child Protective Services will be called.

The insurance is not quite as much as I thought the last time I posted, as the house policy actually includes the value of her contents rather than being in addition to. While the replacement value is accurate for the time they bought the house seven years ago, construction costs have sky rocketed in Hawaii since then. Additionally, they remodeled several rooms, and the policy amount was not updated to accommodate for both types of increases. I have to admit that I don’t know if I would’ve thought of it either, but at least it’s something for you to consider if your housing and/or construction market is booming. UPDATE: and in answer to Stephanie's fair question in the comments is that I think my mom knew that she should've updated her policy, but my step-dad usually handled those things. With his illness and subsequent passing, it just slipped her mind.

This catastrophe will cost her at least a third of what selling the house out-right would’ve given her (this is after all insurance is collected and the lot is sold). While my mom will not be destitute, she may not be able to do some of the things she had been planning, which is something that should never have to change due to someone else’s negligence.

I want to give a shout-out to my wonderful friends that helped my mom go through the muck in the house today – Mike, Matthew, Ana, Denise, Katrina and six-month pregnant Jan who brought them cold drinks. I’m not sure where my mom’s friends are, or if I just bullied mine into helping, but I’m extremely grateful to them.

They were able to find random things that survived, particularly those that were within a “real” wood piece of furniture. They found some photo albums and some pictures in a closet in that bedroom in the photo above and my mom’s passport and tax records in a filing cabinet. Apparently, my mom started to find pieces of jewelry from her bedroom (her room was the furthest point from the fire’s start), by putting a chunk of soot in a bucket and hosing it down like a gold miner. But otherwise, not much was found and they plan to demolish the house this week.

My friend Mike ran into the fire inspector on the property the day after it happened, and the inspector said that one thing that people can do to help stall the spread of fire is to close the doors as they evacuate the house. It can take up to three minutes for fire to burn through a bedroom door, which can be a huge difference if the fire department shows up in that time frame. Also, he mentioned that when a match hits a foam egg crate on a bed, you might as well have lit a can of gasoline, for they are that flammable (yes, one was on that bed that “caught” the lit match, thanks to moi).

Another thing I might throw out there for people that have to go through any type of tragedy. Don’t be afraid to ask your friends for help. Sure, it’s great to have people to go to dinner with on a Friday night, but times like these are when we really need them. And if you are the friend of someone enduring an event like this, don’t just say “let me know if you need help” and then wait for him/her to call you back. Follow up with them ask say “I’m coming over to help you comb through that crap in your house, so is tomorrow okay?” It is extremely difficult for the person to ask for the help, and the only reason my mom accepted my friends’ assistance was because I offered to set it up and make the calls. She even said “but, I’m not sure we’ll find anything so I don’t want to waste their time,” and I had to tell her, “No one’s going to care if you find anything, but they put themselves in your shoes and know how important it is to look.”

I think that one of my brothers may go out there next week for moral support, and she’s going to decide this week if I should try to go out there over Labor Day weekend. My mom’s ready to get rid of the real estate business, so she’d like my help in straightening out the books and it also happens to be her birthday on the first. I think a spa day is in order for her.

What’s really difficult with all of this is that it’s a reminder that no matter how careful you are or how well you plan, so many things are out of your hands and can change at the whim of another. There will always be people that run that red light, drive drunk or kids that will throw a lighted match. It’s kind of nerve-wracking to think that we really aren’t as much in control as we'd like to think we are.