Lessons Learned from Losing Everything in a House Fire
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[00:00:00] As a decluttering coach who prides myself on successfully clearing my clutter while still holding on to all of my favorite belongings, having a house fire and losing everything has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. This is the story of what happened. How our house caught fire and some of the lessons I have learned along the way.
Hey there, I'm Nicole from The Maximizing Momma, and I am obsessed with creating a home that gives me more peace of mind, more time to myself and more time with my kids. I teach you the tried and true secrets to clearing your clutter, getting organized, and managing your household in a realistic and sustainable way.
This show is where we talk about things like motherhood, decluttering, organizing, creating routines, mindset, energy, and everything in between. Our homes are the foundation for the rest of our lives, and it's so important [00:01:00] to have a calm, relaxing household so you can have the time, the peace of mind, and the freedom to truly enjoy motherhood.
So sit back and get ready to take charge of your home. '
Hello, hello, welcome everyone to the Take Charge of Your Home Show. It has been a little while since I have been back on here, recording an episode. So I wanted to share a quick little update as to what's been going on for me personally. As you may have figured out from the title of this episode, we had a house fire. On July 22nd. It was actually a couple of days after a free live workshop. We had a live event on zoom called organizing secrets for messy homes that was on Tuesday, July 18th, and then four days later it was a [00:02:00] Saturday. I was bartending at our local comedy club.
And we were really busy that night. And, um, The R the phone ring at the club and my manager was right next to me when he answered it and had basically, I could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong when he handed me the phone. And he said, it's for you. There's an emergency. And my husband said, um, if I remember correctly, he said, the house. Either he said the house caught fire or the house is on fire. We can't find the Augie and Rotto, which are two of our pets. And he said, I'm not joking. Which you know, now that I say that out loud, that seems so weird for somebody to say, but that's kind of the dynamic of our relationship. Um,
You know, just to like, for him to let me know, like this isn't a joke like this, isn't some kind of a prank or something like that, which, you know, that's not something he would joke [00:03:00] about, but. Anyways. So, um, in those first couple of minutes, Like I don't, I've been thinking back to that.
It's like I was in like survival mode. I have a. Like shocked. I re I remember right when he told me that, I looked out ahead to where our employees were standing, because my job was to make their drinks for their customers. And so they were all standing on the other side of the bar. Like I said, we were really busy that night. They were all standing on the other side. And they're all, all of their eyes widened as they realize to this, something was really like really terribly wrong. And so I remember shaking as I hung up the phone and then I started to gather my things. And one of the servers jumped back behind the bar to you know, take my place in and finish making the drinks that I was in the middle of making. And I grabbed my purse. [00:04:00] And then I remember I was kind of like pacing. Like it just, well, on the one hand I worked at that place for eight years. So it's like, it felt really strange to leave in the middle of a very busy shift, which is something that I've never done before. But I also think that a lot of it had to do with like, my what's happening right now. Like my body couldn't even register what was going on. So I remember driving home. And, um, I opened up my phone and saw that my husband had, you know, tried to text me before he called the club. And, um, I don't remember now what it said. I think it was something along those same lines. Like the house is on fire. The fire departments here.
Now. I do remember.
Not feeling like it was real like, like on the way home, I thought to myself, Like this can't really be happening. You know, this can't really be what's happening right now. Um, [00:05:00]
And I w. I was thinking. Thinking to myself, like how come I'm not crying? How come, I just feel like so numb. . And now that it's been a couple of weeks, I've realized that it's because, like I said, I. Like my body and my nervous system in general, hadn't truly.
Grasped the severity of what was going on.
So when I finally got to the house, I remember, so we had a, like an S curve that led to our street. So we would turn in off the main road. And drive down. You know, aside straight and then the. The end of that street turned into an S curve. And then you could see our street at the end of that S curve. And I remember as I approached the S curve, I thought to myself like, this is the defining moment. I'm going to turn this corner and it's going to be real. Like, I'm going to see these firetrucks. I'm going to see my house [00:06:00] gone. And that's actually kind of what happened as I turned the S curve. I realized like, Oh, my God. There's a huge. , problem. There are hundreds of people in front of our house. There's fire trucks. And I couldn't even get close enough to our house. Like I had to park a few houses down. And I sat there in our family van for a minute, just like in disbelief, just like looking at at the charred remains of my childhood home. 'cause I, I couldn't really comprehend what I was seeing.
Well then. I got out of the car and. And I walked up to our front yard. And I, I just fell to my knees.
As I realized that everything I had ever owned was gone.
Now, um, [00:07:00]
You know, in hindsight, now that it's been a couple of weeks and I have been inside so.
About half of our things are gone. But to me. It's what really matters that's gone. And aside from my pets, which I'll get to in a minute. So the fire started in the garage. And it burned so quickly and so fast and took over our entire house, which I will also get to in a minute as to why that happened. That everything in the garage, the kitchen, the dining room and the living room has been destroyed. The back bedrooms are all okay. They just have severe, severe smoke damage. So. Everything that was in my bedroom, my kids' rooms, all of that stuff is okay. And we were able to, you know, like I have all my journals, I have my laptop, I have my clothes. Um, We had a bedroom that was not a bedroom. We have a, um, a computer that was [00:08:00] in my son's room. We have most of their stuffed animals, things like that. The only thing from the bedrooms that really might not be okay is one of the bedrooms shared a wall with the living room and that living room wall started to burn.
And so half of the wall is, was gone. And so everything that was on that side of the wall in my son's room might not be okay. And it's really hard to tell in his bedroom, because, so again, the wall collapsed and everything that was on there fell, which actually happened to be a stuffed animal net. And inside of that stuff, they, animal net was some of my oldest child's, well, not some. The very first time I found out I was pregnant with my oldest son. This was 15 years ago. The very first thing I went out and bought was this little bear. You know, before I knew if I was having a boy or a [00:09:00] girl. And then as my son was born and moved into his toddler years. He had this little bear blanket. . And, um, Those two things were in that stuffed animal net. And so I can't really find them in that bedroom right now because. You know, there's insulation. So the ceiling is gone. The wall had caved in and then everything that's on the top layer is wet from the firefighters hoses. So, I don't know if those stuffed animals are okay or not. Those two stuffed animals are the only ones that really are that important to me in my son's room. But where I'm kind of going with this is so. I had a lot of things in my bedroom. I kept a lot of sentimental items on my dresser. Not a lot, a few. I actually have them behind me. I have a couple carousels from when I was younger. I have, um, you know, some pictures, things like that. [00:10:00] And then I had a couple of things in my bathroom and my closet. But in the grand scheme of all of my belongings.
Those couple of things while I'm so grateful that I still have them,
I'm devastated about all the things that I lost that were stored in our garage.
Um, If you've been in this community for a while. You know that I refer to myself as an extremely sentimental person who is emotionally attached to all of my belongings. And really, I took great pride in sharing my my childhood things. My, my decorations and my sentimental items on my Instagram stories. I would, I would always share about how it's totally possible to hold onto decades worth of our belongings with intention and [00:11:00] purpose. But every single one of those items. Is now gone. Like a pair of Santa's boots that my grandmother had given to my mom in 1965. We had an advent calendar. So in 1992, my grandmother. The same grandmother who had given my mom the Santa's boots, my grandmother and my mom and me, we all loved Christmas. So my grandmother had bought my mom this all over the world, advent calendar and the way that it works is it's. Um, You have all these different types of people from all over the world, and then there's a tree in the middle and you know, for each day you move one of the people to the numbered part of the calendar. So in 1992, At the beginning of November. My grandma bought that advent calendar for my mom. And then she put it in the mail. To be sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma from Detroit, Michigan. [00:12:00] Then my grandmother passed away. And so my mom went to her funeral. She knows she flew back home to Michigan to go to her funeral. And when she returned back to Oklahoma, And she picked up her mail.
That advent calendar was in the mail. So it was as if it had been sent from heaven.
And it was one of my mom's most prized possessions. So when she passed away, I inherited that. And it's been one of my most prized possessions.
And we stored it in the garage, along with the rest of our Christmas decor. So, and those are the types of things that I'm so devastated about as well as all of my photographs, everything. Well mom's photos. My grandmother's photos, like all of my childhood photos, all of those are gone. [00:13:00] And I think those were the most devastating. I mean, there are several little things that keep popping into my mind here and there. Like. Oh my God, my yearbooks or my mom's long a burger baskets because I liked having those and using them in our house. And it's just been so hard. It's been, it's been the hardest thing I have ever experienced. And the reason why I really wanted to come on here and share this is because this is a podcast about decluttering. And the maximizing momma community and my brand in general, like I said, it's all about you know, taking charge of your home and in creating a calm and a peaceful space without becoming a minimalist while still holding onto all of your belongings, because.
Even though those things, you know, in the grand scheme of my life, they're not what matters, . They were important to me. And. That's why I wanted to share [00:14:00] about this with you.
So, um,
Kind of switching gears for a minute. So our pets that we lost.
So when the fire started.
You know, like I said, I wasn't there. But based on the story that my husband has told me. He said they were getting ready to go to Walmart, which on that note, I'm like, why in the world were you leaving at nine o'clock at night to go to Walmart with our kids, but you know, that's a story for another day. So he said they were getting ready to go to Walmart and he had just put all three of our dogs outside just to have them use the bathroom before we left, because we keep our dogs inside. So he had just put all three of our dogs outside. And then he could hear my youngest daughter screaming, like screaming as if, you know, somebody was dying. So he ran through the sliding glass door and left the door open. And I later asked him, [00:15:00] like, why did you leave it open? And he was like, well, because you know, there was like an emergency going, like I knew something was wrong. So it was like fight or flight. Like I was running to figure out what was going on and I didn't even shut the glass door behind me. Which is just very, like, we always shut the glass door because we have an indoor cat. So in that process of him running back inside, Our little white dog. He weighed like 20 pounds. His name was Augie. He looked exactly like Benji. Yeah, Augie ran inside after him. And the only thing we can think of is that. So he was Courtney's dog, my youngest daughter, the one who was screaming, Augie was her dog, really. So we, you know, have kind of deduced that he probably was coming in to see what was wrong, to see why she was screaming. Well, then nobody knows what happened next with him, because, so what my husband has said is when he came in to [00:16:00] our dining room, he could see smoke coming over the walls, like where the ceiling meets the wall. Which would be mean that it was coming from our garage. So he had the kids run out the front door. And then he was a couple of seconds behind them. And, uh, he thought that Augie was outside. And in that moment, he knew like, he didn't have time to go and find our cat because he had no idea where he was. He always hides under beds. And. You know, like they had, he had no idea what, what was really going on, like how bad the fire was or. Or anything, and it's probably, you know, A good thing that he didn't try to go find our cat because the fire took over so quickly. It was like a couple of minutes in the entire house was in flames. And on that note, it's really a [00:17:00] blessing in disguise that I was not there for a couple of reasons. Number one. If I had witnessed the fire.
I can't even imagine what that would be like. And I'm so grateful that I didn't and.
You know, on the other hand. I feel so broken hearted that my family did.
But. Really, if I had been there. I know that I would have gone back in there after my pets. I know that I would have. So. I would have been trying to save my cat Rotto. The minute we realized there was a fire, I would have snatched him up and tried to get out and I very likely could have had you know, I ended up dying from smoke inhalation.
So with Augie. I think, you know, Dustin had assumed he was outside and then when the fire department [00:18:00] got there and then I think he went outside to go check on the dogs and he realized that Augie wasn't out there. So. It's been really hard.
Because.
Just a couple of weeks before the fire, we'd actually gone over a fire escape plan.
But we didn't do was talk about what would happen if only one adult was there. And so that is one lesson that I think has really stuck with me. You know, I've been thinking this whole time, like, God, Nicole. Even before you like a year ago, I've been thinking, why the hell do you guys have four pets four pets is too many. You have four kids, you have four pets. It's way too many beings inside of your house. And, you know, On the one hand, you never think a fire is really going to happen to you. [00:19:00] You never think like.
It's actually going to be you and your family.
And I remember when we sat down and created this fire escape plan, we had detailed out who was going to get, which of our pets. And my eight year old sons said that he wanted to get our cat Rotto and I remember telling him. No, I should, because Rotto will be scared and it will be hard to carry him, you know? And then we had decided that Dustin, my husband would get our bigger two dogs, Daisy and Harvey. And then courtney, my youngest daughter would get Augie. And, um,
I don't really remember where I was going. Oh, so. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that. Yeah, you never think of fire is going to happen to you, but you should always have a fire escape plan for if there's only one adult there. Because. I, I keep going, playing over in my head [00:20:00] over and over again, that if we had had a plan in place for one adult. If we had actually practiced what we would do in the moment. That maybe before Dustin had ran outside, maybe he would have remembered to shut the glass door and these are all just what it, what ifs. And it's totally normal for me to be going over this in my head repeatedly and really ruminating on the what ifs and what could we have done better. And. And everything along those lines. And that's not really why I wanted to come on here and share this today. But. I'm kind of just riffing and sharing what's coming to mind. So on that note, um, Another thing that I wanted to mention.
I'm sorry for the sniffles. I'm. Obviously, you know, very, very upset and have been crying as I've been recording this. So, um, the firemen told us that they did not know what started the fire. They didn't even know where it started, which was really hard to [00:21:00] face because I mean, come on, we need to know where the fire started. Like we would like to know at least. So a couple of a week or so later I went and got a copy of the fire report and I was terrified as I was driving closer and closer to the fire station. I could feel my, my body and my nervous system just freaking out because I was so scared of what I would find. And, um, it actually said in the fire report that they didn't know it was undetermined. Because one of the other things that I've been kind of riffing on over the last couple of weeks is. Dammit, Nicole, you should have had that inspection like you were going to. So about a year ago. I decided like, Hey, we need to have this house inspected because it hadn't been inspected in a long time. I acquired that house from my late mother when she passed away and we moved in. And so, you know, normally when you would move to a house, it would always be inspected and we never had that done. And [00:22:00] so right after the fire started or right after the fire happened. You know, I was saying like, if this, if you had just got that inspection, this never would have been a problem. This never would've happened. So when I went and picked up a copy of the fire report, I was terrified that I would find out that it was something small and insignificant where if I had just had the house inspected, that it could have all been prevented. But when I got the fire report it actually said, undetermined, So my insurance company decided that they wanted to hire a fire investigator to come out and come to his own conclusion. So he actually came out to the house about two weeks ago. I think it was now. And I was walking around in there with him and he was able to determine exactly where the fire started. It was in or around or next to or on top of our hot water heater. [00:23:00] Now he still does not know why it started. And for that they are hiring an engineer. And, um, at first I was like, what the heck is an engineer going to do? Like, look at the inner workings of my house. No what an engineer is going to do is take apart the hot water heater and figure out what went wrong. Why did the fire start here? And it has been so interesting to kind of learn the inner workings of how all of this happens. And I know, you know, we've learned this over the years, how fire men are able to pinpoint where a fire starts because of burn marks. That's what I was always told. But actually it's because of something called, I think it's called mass ting. I think that's the right way to say it. And what it essentially is, is the, um, size of the wood of the two by fours that make up your house. So he was pointing around my garage and showing me, you know, the two by fours are all still there. [00:24:00] What was basically makes up the structure of our house. And, um, you know, on most of the two by fours, they're all the same size all the way across. They're just black. And, um, they have this weird, like, Texture. It's really hard to explain it. It's almost like a plaid texture. But when you're referring to masting, it's the size of the two by four. So the far right end is the same size as the same width as this N width, depth and length. It's all the same on every side of the two by four. However. You can look around and see where these two by fours are not the same. And in one particular area of our garage, one of the two by fours had actually fallen down. Half of it was hanging where it was supposed to be at the top of the garage wall. And half of it was hanging on the ground. And the one that was hanging on the ground you could [00:25:00] see is much smaller on the left side of the two by four than it is on the right side that is still attached to the wall. And so the fire investigator told me what that means is that there was direct flame on that piece of wood. So when there's direct flame on a piece of wood for an even longer amount of time, the wood will shrink in size. And so after he told me that I was like, oh my God, I can look around and it's so obvious. Like he could figure out exactly where the fire started because all the, all the wood right above the hot water heater is shrunk. The same two by four pieces, one end of it is shrunk above the water, the hot water heater, but the rest of those pieces are all the same size. So it's like it starts out maybe two inches wide. And then as you go along the piece of wood, it goes to
four inches or whatever it's supposed to be. So we know it started in the hot water heater. We don't know why yet. Um, but what the fire investigator [00:26:00] told me is that so often when it's the hot water heater, what ends up being the cause of it is that there is a little tubing, like a little pipe thing and if it's attached to a gas line, nine times out of 10 it's because there was a little pinhole leak and it was leaking gas.
Which is. Really scary. When you think about it, because what if it had happened at night? So.
The reason why the fire took over our house in a matter of minutes is because we had a tree fall on our roof. It was right around, um, Juneteenth. It was June 18th. I think it was. So we had a hundred mile per hour winds. It's actually called a Dericho, which I didn't know. And, um, a tree in our backyard split in half. Very huge half of the tree fell on our roof and had actually put [00:27:00] holes in our attic. We'd filed an insurance claim. We were waiting for the settlement to come so we can fix the roof. And our roof was tarped in the meantime. Well, so that was over our kitchen. And our kitchen is right next to our garage. And the fire started at the hot water heater, which is right on a wall that is shared with our kitchen. So as soon as that fire went up and started burning the ceiling of the garage, The minute it had airflow because of the holes in the roof, it just like took over. Like the airflow really helped it spread much more quickly than a typical house fire. And the fire investigator told me that all fire wants is oxygen. What a fire basically does is consume oxygen. So when my husband was putting our dogs outside, the fire was likely already going in our garage. And once it had consumed all of the air that was possible in the garage that's when [00:28:00] the smoke started going over the top part of the wall into the living room. And that's when my daughter started screaming and that's when my husband came in and realized something was wrong. So, um,
Oh, I was saying, you know, if it had happened while we had been asleep, We may not have even known until it was too late. We had a smoke detector, but it was farther down. Near the bedrooms. And so, you know, that's another lesson I've learned. That's two lessons. Now the first lesson is to create your fire escape plan for when there's only one adult home. The second lesson is to have smoke detectors all throughout your house. Even if you live in a small house. So we only had one smoke detector because our house is a thousand square feet. But having a fire start in the garage. If there was a gas leak in our hot water heater and it had happened overnight. We may not have even been awake until it was too late. So that's the second lesson that I wanted to share [00:29:00] with you today. Now I titled this podcast, you know, lessons learned from losing everything. And that's because while it only has been a couple of weeks, there are a couple of lessons that I have really taken away from this entire experience. So the, the third lesson is to digitize and organize your photos right now. Don't wait. I know that you have been wanting to organize your photos for probably decades. And you always put it off because you always find something else more important to do. Well, don't wait, don't wait any longer. I know the chance of somebody having a house fire. It's very, it's very low. But you know, anybody could have any kind of emergency at any given time. You could have a flood, you could have, um, you know, Something, anything could happen. [00:30:00] And so I just feel like, you know, since this podcast is all about decluttering and organizing and dealing with your belongings and your home, if your photographs are important to you, don't wait. Don't put it off any longer. Because not having those photos is something that will really devastate me for the rest of my life. And then also the fourth mistake is, or the fourth lesson that I want to share with you. Is to also digitize your recipes. If you've been creating a family recipe book full of all of your favorite recipes, go ahead and put them somewhere digital, even if it's the notes app on your phone. What I like to do when I come across a recipe that I want to try, or that my family likes is I will just copy the link and add it to the notes app on my phone. And so that's what I'd done with a lot of newer recipes over the last year. However. All of our family [00:31:00] favorites, all of the recipes that we have been you know, using and remaking and loving for the last five years. Those were all in a recipe book that I had spent five years creating. I wanted to create this book to make it easier for me to make dinner at night and also for something that, so that way my family could have access to my recipes when they get older. And I lost my recipe book in the fire. And I also lost my late mother's handwritten recipes. I had kept those in a little box on the top of my baking cabinet. And I noticed in our kitchen that the box is still there. But the recipes inside have been burned up. So if you have been trying to you know, make a recipe book. If you have old handwritten recipes that you want to save, go ahead and do that now. And also along those same lines, one thing I've been [00:32:00] wanting to do over the last couple of years or, or more so have somebody do for me is to access my late mother is handwriting and make some kind of kitchen towel or apron or something like that. And I had always planned on using my mom's recipe cards for that, or finding a letter or a card or something along those lines. But now. I don't have that anymore. Um, I no longer have anything with her handwriting on it. So.
I can't really do that. And, um, It's just been really hard for me to come to terms with all of this and to, to really recognize that all of these things are gone. Everything that I've ever, that has ever really truly mattered to me. Things that I thought that I would be privileged enough to have for the rest of my life. Now I'm, I'm trying to really grasp the fact that I will never [00:33:00] have those things again. Like that advent calendar and those Santa's boots and, you know, my, my parents first ornaments and a lot of really special things to me. That I've had since a child. It's like, I I've had those things for 30 years and now I can't even grasp not having them for another 30 years.
So anyway. That's pretty much the gist of what's going on with our house fire. Like I said, it's been truly the hardest thing that I have ever experienced in my entire life. And that's saying a lot, considering I have been homeless, I had been through a lot of adversities and hardships. But this has been extremely traumatic and unlike nothing I have ever experienced before. So with all of that said, I think on one of our last episodes, I had said that I would be back here more often. And then it [00:34:00] was like a couple of days later when we had our house fire, I lost my computer, I lost my microphone. All of that stuff, but I just got a new microphone in the mail. I got a new ring light. I still have my laptop. So I'm recording this episode today on my laptop. And I am very excited to get back into the swing of things. Right now we are saying at my step aunts house in a house that she owns, and my kids started school today, which is why I'm back here today, recording this episode, because for the first time all summer, I have a little bit of quiet and breathing room. And my two dogs, Harvey and Daisy are are napping in front of me and not barking. So that has been very pleasant. So anyways, I'm excited to come back here every single week and really help you with each individual episode help you get one step closer to taking charge of your home and having a more relaxing, well-run household that you [00:35:00] truly love to live in. So with that said, I wanted to share with you really quick. We have another live event coming up soon. This is our second out of three live events that we have happening this summer. This one is called How to Keep a Neat and Tidy Home When Nothing Has Worked Before Now. And I'm going to be recording another episode all about it.
But in the meantime, if you know that you are ready to save your seat, you will find the link to do that in the show notes. And right now we have an exclusive pop-up community called Breathing Room, just for all of these live events that are taking place over the next two months. And I'm super excited for this because what this will give you is one dedicated place where you can find everything. I plan to stream the live live workshop into the Facebook group. We will also have impromptu live streams and daily coaching and support and [00:36:00] reminders and everything that you could possibly need. And this is exclusively for those who are joining one of our live event. So again, in the show notes, you will find the link to save your seat for the upcoming workshop, How to Keep a Neat and Tidy Home When Nothing Has Worked Before Now. When you save your seat, you you will receive a confirmation email with the link to join our exclusive pop-up community. And then you can get support for what you're specifically struggling with in your personal, specific household. And I can't wait to see see you there. So go save your seat for the the workshop, be on the lookout for another episode coming tomorrow. I actually have quite a few episodes planned for the next couple of days. As I take some time to catch up on, you know, What's happened after our house fire and what you can expect going forward throughout the rest of 2023.
So, thank you. For being here. Thank you for [00:37:00] listening and thank you for being a part of this community. It truly means the world to me. This podcast has been so incredible ever since I first started it almost a year ago. And, um, I truly could never imagine fully stepping away from this business and this podcast. So I just just want to let you know that you listening, you being being here, you tuning into the episodes and downloading them, it does not go unnoticed. I. I am so grateful and so blessed every single day to have your support and to to just know that you're there and that you are appreciative of this podcast . It really means the world to me.
And on that note, I would love it. If you would leave a review. Leave a review or a rating for the Take Charge of Your Home Show because I love to know that you are finding enjoyment that you're [00:38:00] finding value and education from the content that I share. So if you feel called to do so, take a screenshot of your review, email it to me at [email protected]. And I will enter you into a giveaway for a free one-on-one coaching call with me. So that's all I have for you today. I'm sure as more lessons come to me over the next, the next year I will be sharing more about the lessons that I have learned after having a house fire and losing all of our belongings. So make sure to stay tuned. You can follow along on all the social media platforms. You'll find the link for those below. And if you ever have any questions, you can always send me a direct message on Instagram. Okay, I'll chat with you soon. Bye.
