One Homeless Adventure

So I think I have jinxed myself in the past few weeks because I keep saying how boring I am. Sometimes I feel like Dillon and I are an old married couple that does nothing but do homework, read and go to bed much earlier than 90 percent of the people our age. But this week, all of that changed. It all started last week when I walked into our spare bathroom and noticed that our toilet was truly falling through the floor and I had nightmares it would land on the people living beneath us. The maintenance crew in our apartment got involved and redid our entire bathroom floor. Luckily, Thursday, our bathroom floor was complete with new flooring and a firm and solid toilet. I was a happy girl. 

But Friday, my joy for our new toilet was quickly forgotten as I was being hurried out of our apartment by a policeman because our building was on fire. It was a little after 7 p.m. and Dillon and I had just gotten back from the grocery store. Dillon was sitting on the couch while I was in our bedroom closet working on a decluttering project I wanted to get done over the weekend. I started to hear banging and figured it was the neighbors. Dillon heard a guy banging on doors and yelling fire. He poked his head out of our front door and a policeman was running up to our apartment. He told us there was a fire and we had to get out now. Dillon ran into the room and yelled for me to go. 

Smoke coming out right after the
fire had been extinguished.

My first thought was, "What do I grab?" You know how people will ask you, "If you are in a fire, what is the first thing you will take with you?" All of those answers quickly came to my mind. But the problem was, we were being hurried and I didn't have time to grab anything. I threw on a pair of shoes, grabbed my purse, my phone and jacket that was sitting on the couch. Honestly, I didn't think it was as big of a deal as they made it sound. I thought it was just protocol and was a small kitchen fire that set off a bunch of smoke alarms. We went through this ALL the time living in the dorms at Utah State. 

Anyways, as we were running out of the house, my beloved computer was sitting on the couch next to the door, so I swiped that and we ran down the stairs. Once we got outside the door, the smell of smoke was very strong. We made it down the stairs and looked over at the basement apartment and saw huge flames coming out of their screen door. We counted at least five firetrucks and two ambulances in our parking lot. Plus, there were a bunch of police cars but I have no idea how many there were. We stood across the parking lot and watched as the firemen put out the fire in the basement. I was feeling pretty uneasy when I saw how big the fire actually was. I called my mom and told her the whole story. It just makes you feel a lot better about things when you can talk to your mom, even if she can't do anything to help.

The parking lot was closed off because of all the firetrucks and ambulances and we had to wait outside for more than two hours. Luckily, time went by quickly for me because I was on the phone with my mom and many ward members checking to see what was going on. The apartment called us a little after 9 that night and said we couldn't get into our home that night. We couldn't even go up into our apartment to get belongings. They had to go through the entire building to check everything and the CO2 levels were extremely high that there was no way we could stay. We were officially homeless. Luckily, Grandpa and Grandma were home so we headed down to Spanish Fork for the night with nothing but the clothes on our back, cell phones and my computer.

About noon on Saturday our apartment manager called and said we could go back into our home. They had been cleared for carbon monoxide and we should be ok to enter. Thankfully, we had no damage to our home. We were far enough from the fire that nothing happened. But, our entire place smells like a mixture of smoke and ash. It reeks awful and no matter what I do, I can't seem to get rid of the smell. I spent all Saturday afternoon scrubbing, hoping the smell would diminish. We even turned off our heat and opened all our windows, yes in the middle of January, to try and air out the smell. My manager mentioned to me that the Red Cross expects the smell to linger for a few weeks so I guess I will just bear it. I am keeping a lot of Febreeze in stock though. 

We have not received an official report of why the fire stared. We know it began in the kitchen of an apartment and have heard it was an electrical issue. Nobody was in the apartment at the time and the renters were actually moving in that day. They didn't lose all their possessions because they weren't moved in yet. Thank goodness for that. It is estimated that the fire cost $50,000 - $100,000 in damage. It also destroyed three apartments and us 12 families living in the building all had to be displaced from our homes.

Image of the fire coming out of the screen. It is pretty blurry
because we were far away and it was taken on
Dillon's iPhone.

But we survived and have quite a story to tell. Both Dillon and I feel very fortunate and blessed that not any more damage happened than did. We are glad nobody was injured and that we didn't lose any of our valuables. I now have a good list of items I would grab in case a situation happens like this again and it opened my eyes to being a little more prepared such as putting my journals on cloud servers and ensuring that all important documents are in our fireproof safe and not just sitting out because we will get to it later. Between our toilet and the fire, 2012 is really kicking off with a bang. And I've learned a very valuable lesson through all of this. Be careful what you wish for. You won't hear me saying that we live a boring life anytime again in the near future because this is not the excitement I really want.