Farm arson rebuild fund

When our family and farm survived Black Saturday, we were so thankful. Little did we know that five years on, almost to the day, we too would lose everything to a devastating fire, simply because we hired and befriended Gino and Mark Stocco.

                            

We let them into our home, fed and even clothed them, in exchange for odd jobs. They were good workers and said we treated them better than their own family. We had always enjoyed having visitors in the house, and had met all sorts of interesting people through a website our farm was listed on.

 

But after a few years of Gino and Mark turning up unannounced and there being less work to go around, we decided to prioritise our family and asked the Stoccos to space out their visits a bit more.

 

Six months later, in October 2013, our first hay shed was destroyed by fire. We couldn’t save anything. We had no hay left. It was arson but we never suspected the Stoccos. And unfortunately, our shed wasn’t insured. We had always had insurance but after Black Saturday, we couldn’t afford the new fire levy. We figured we had been lucky so far so didn’t insure the sheds and machinery, just the house. It was only ever going to be temporary.

 

We tried to reinsure our second shed, but our contact at our Elders insurance company of 12 years suddenly wouldn’t take our calls. So we just got busy with the hay with the help of friends’ paddocks in the district. Most of our machinery was therefore on other people’s farms. We then brought it back to our main farm, stacked it, cleaned it and put it in the sheds that were still standing

 

Four days later, on January 29, 2014,they too were lit up in the middle of the night. We lost all our machinery , hay and workshop tools. We were totally devastated. We lost everything. The value was well over $800,000 and we were no longer insured.

 

We were also terrified. We couldn’t go out in the paddocks – we realized someone was targeting us. Were they going to set fire to our house next, with us in it? We couldn’t sleep and we cried a lot.

 

Police help? No.

 

It was only when we saw a Facebook campaign to catch the Stoccos that we realised they might be responsible. Now that they are caught, we can sleep again … but it doesn’t get us our farm back.

 

We have had to sell our cattle, rent out our farm,and house and move in with Rick’s parents.




All we want to do is farm again. 

 

We haven’t spoken publicly until now as we were too scared. Now the Stoccos are caught, we are hoping we can get some financial assistance to get our lives back. Or even some second hand farming equipment or tools would help us enormously.

 

Some of the machinery destroyed;

 2 x 100hp 4x4 cab tractors with loader

2x Round baler

2x Hay rakes

2 x Seeder

3m Mulcher

Post rammer

Hay mower

Header

Lucas Mill

2 x ATV

 Mig welder

Generator

Fire pump

Air compressor

3 x 25m x25m sheds

And numerous hand and power tools .

 

Rick, Sandra and family thank you for your interest in our story.

For more info Ricks mobile is 0429003416.

See the full story here:

https://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/video/watch/31881638/this-week-catching-the-stoccos/#page1