Help end 4 year fire nightmare
Donation protected
Our life went up in smoke, literally! Here is our story… Please don't ignore and take a few minutes to read.
Four years ago today being a single mother of 2 amazing kids, my beautiful daughter Carina (Kina) and my incredible son Gian-Franco (Kako) whom has type 1 diabetes since infancy. With full hands I was on the road to graduating from a 4 yr Bachelor of Child Development program at Seneca College. This had been a long rocky road of being a mother, making dinners, lunches, picking up kids from school, helping them with their homework and all the while pulling all nighters just to keep up on my own full time school load of assignments, exams… juggling my school life and parenting home life was not an easy feat, but I did it to move forward and give my children a better life.
In March of 2014 I was in my final year and looking forward to graduating in May. Unfortunately we had a house fire at our Tottenham home that threw my life into a series of nightmares…I did not graduate needing 3 credits to complete, I did not make any sense of anything around me for many years. I became a ghost of who I am, going through the motions, moving from place to place, packing and unpacking to the count of 16 places to date. We stayed everywhere from Mississauga to Caledon East to Collingwood to Nobleton to Vaughan to Tottenham and all the while trying to get this fire situation resolved and to move forward to no avail.
The first year and a half after the fire I trusted in the system naively and believed that our home would soon be rebuilt and all would be back to normal…Four months after being in a small 1 room hotel with four of us and 2 pets (Oreo-cat & Karma-doggy) we were cramped and thankful to be homed in a beautiful large luxurious home in Nobleton that we believed to be the only place we’d be before moving back into our own home…we were very very wrong…instead 13 more hotels, apartments, condos and homes followed.
Three months after the Nobleton lease ran out our insurance stopped paying ALE (Additional Living Expenses) and the money that had been paid out for contents with the intention to replace all our loved valuables, our necessities, our memories had to instead be used to survive…No matter how wrong that was of our insurance to put us in such a predicament I still didn’t complain. I knew our house was currently being worked on by a recommended family friend and I trusted that out house although taking longer than initially expected would soon be completed and we would be ok.
Three months after that in December of 2015 our contractor asked for more money and claimed that everything was going smoothly…Much to my dismay and shock NOTHING was as it should have been in our precious house… The basics of the engineering requirements and insurances must haves were not met, not even remotely met. As I further looked into this dismal situation it got worse and worse until I had no choice but to contact my insurance company and explain the predicament and get back up… of course they agreed that it was shoddy work, and not even close to the guidelines and directions set out for completion of house. BUT, instead of getting assistance the insurance company pulled out claiming that too much time had passed and they would not wait around until another contractor came in to fix the job and complete….this brought my world crashing down. Now I really started to panic.
I had no choice but to get a lawyer that can work on contingency and will take close to 50% of any monies reclaimed, but I quickly understood why they take such cases and it is because they sit on the cases and barely work the claims… Since March of 2016 I have been with these lawyers and no movement or change to help bring a end to this claim. I keep being told repeatedly to be patient and to understand that this is the process, but this doesn’t help when time is running out. At this point I am unsure if I will receive anything at all, and whatever is received will not be enough to complete house.
Throughout this years since the fire in 2014 I have become a shell of who I was, my health has badly deteriorated to the point that I cannot leave the house for days or weeks at a time…they call it engoraphobia. Reaching out to people, keeping in touch, visiting with family or friends was excruciating for me…partly because I don’t know what to say and scared to bring to light how bad the situation actually was. Everyone always hears of others with depression, anxiety, social phobias and this now is me. This is the hardest thing to admit to, but I need to be transparent in hopes to get the help my family needs.
The one thing that has kept me from completely losing my mind throughout this entire ordeal over the past 4 years has been my beautiful, amazing, innocent children who deserve a healthy home and mother along with the opportunity to be happy again.
Today, almost 4 years later I have reached rock bottom. All my savings, content funds & insurance payouts have been 97% depleted by 29 months of paying mortgage on my unliveable house + property taxes + rental place + utilities on both properties + living expenses. Additionally, I tried selling the house but to no avail, since it is uninhabitable any potential buyer needs to have 50% of purchase cost as down payment and this chased every and any potential buyer running for the hills….I had no choice but to continue paying for this unliveable house.
Since last fall, I have undertaken along with a friend the contracting role and have managed to hire professionals to fix many of the original contractors shoddy work. To date, the electrical has been fully redone and passed ESA & city inspection, the plumbing & HVAC is at 90% completion and looking great and the house has been properly insulated with foam as required by insurance and has also passed city inspection. As good as this is, there is still so much more, the drywall that has areas that require scaffolds, the flooring that needs to be somewhat levelled before laying products down to the biggest headache of all being a load bearing beam that requires engineers and experts to properly replace… not to mention kitchen, bathrooms, sinks, material for flooring, drywall, doors etc etc… everything costs and requires monies we are out of.
Now this is the final hour, we have until April 1st, 2018 to raise the money, to get the help to help us finally have our home back. We are out of options and now I really need your help.
We are hoping that this “Go fund me page” will help us to reach out and get the assistance we desperately require.
I know that everyone has their own issues, that we all have hardships in our lives but this is an opportunity to really make a difference in a family’s life that you know personally or indirectly or are a warm hearted stranger… please help to circulate this plea and ask co workers, family and neighbours to help…please share our Go Fund Me Page on your social media to get people involved.
If you have further questions please message me, if you can offer professional services or products please message me and I hope each and everyone can find it in their hearts to donate as much as you can, as much as you would hope to get if this was your nightmare…either way please help me in spreading the word, in getting awareness and in raising money to keep us from being homeless which is the final step if we do not complete our home in time…APRIL 1st, 2018.
Four years ago today being a single mother of 2 amazing kids, my beautiful daughter Carina (Kina) and my incredible son Gian-Franco (Kako) whom has type 1 diabetes since infancy. With full hands I was on the road to graduating from a 4 yr Bachelor of Child Development program at Seneca College. This had been a long rocky road of being a mother, making dinners, lunches, picking up kids from school, helping them with their homework and all the while pulling all nighters just to keep up on my own full time school load of assignments, exams… juggling my school life and parenting home life was not an easy feat, but I did it to move forward and give my children a better life.
In March of 2014 I was in my final year and looking forward to graduating in May. Unfortunately we had a house fire at our Tottenham home that threw my life into a series of nightmares…I did not graduate needing 3 credits to complete, I did not make any sense of anything around me for many years. I became a ghost of who I am, going through the motions, moving from place to place, packing and unpacking to the count of 16 places to date. We stayed everywhere from Mississauga to Caledon East to Collingwood to Nobleton to Vaughan to Tottenham and all the while trying to get this fire situation resolved and to move forward to no avail.
The first year and a half after the fire I trusted in the system naively and believed that our home would soon be rebuilt and all would be back to normal…Four months after being in a small 1 room hotel with four of us and 2 pets (Oreo-cat & Karma-doggy) we were cramped and thankful to be homed in a beautiful large luxurious home in Nobleton that we believed to be the only place we’d be before moving back into our own home…we were very very wrong…instead 13 more hotels, apartments, condos and homes followed.
Three months after the Nobleton lease ran out our insurance stopped paying ALE (Additional Living Expenses) and the money that had been paid out for contents with the intention to replace all our loved valuables, our necessities, our memories had to instead be used to survive…No matter how wrong that was of our insurance to put us in such a predicament I still didn’t complain. I knew our house was currently being worked on by a recommended family friend and I trusted that out house although taking longer than initially expected would soon be completed and we would be ok.
Three months after that in December of 2015 our contractor asked for more money and claimed that everything was going smoothly…Much to my dismay and shock NOTHING was as it should have been in our precious house… The basics of the engineering requirements and insurances must haves were not met, not even remotely met. As I further looked into this dismal situation it got worse and worse until I had no choice but to contact my insurance company and explain the predicament and get back up… of course they agreed that it was shoddy work, and not even close to the guidelines and directions set out for completion of house. BUT, instead of getting assistance the insurance company pulled out claiming that too much time had passed and they would not wait around until another contractor came in to fix the job and complete….this brought my world crashing down. Now I really started to panic.
I had no choice but to get a lawyer that can work on contingency and will take close to 50% of any monies reclaimed, but I quickly understood why they take such cases and it is because they sit on the cases and barely work the claims… Since March of 2016 I have been with these lawyers and no movement or change to help bring a end to this claim. I keep being told repeatedly to be patient and to understand that this is the process, but this doesn’t help when time is running out. At this point I am unsure if I will receive anything at all, and whatever is received will not be enough to complete house.
Throughout this years since the fire in 2014 I have become a shell of who I was, my health has badly deteriorated to the point that I cannot leave the house for days or weeks at a time…they call it engoraphobia. Reaching out to people, keeping in touch, visiting with family or friends was excruciating for me…partly because I don’t know what to say and scared to bring to light how bad the situation actually was. Everyone always hears of others with depression, anxiety, social phobias and this now is me. This is the hardest thing to admit to, but I need to be transparent in hopes to get the help my family needs.
The one thing that has kept me from completely losing my mind throughout this entire ordeal over the past 4 years has been my beautiful, amazing, innocent children who deserve a healthy home and mother along with the opportunity to be happy again.
Today, almost 4 years later I have reached rock bottom. All my savings, content funds & insurance payouts have been 97% depleted by 29 months of paying mortgage on my unliveable house + property taxes + rental place + utilities on both properties + living expenses. Additionally, I tried selling the house but to no avail, since it is uninhabitable any potential buyer needs to have 50% of purchase cost as down payment and this chased every and any potential buyer running for the hills….I had no choice but to continue paying for this unliveable house.
Since last fall, I have undertaken along with a friend the contracting role and have managed to hire professionals to fix many of the original contractors shoddy work. To date, the electrical has been fully redone and passed ESA & city inspection, the plumbing & HVAC is at 90% completion and looking great and the house has been properly insulated with foam as required by insurance and has also passed city inspection. As good as this is, there is still so much more, the drywall that has areas that require scaffolds, the flooring that needs to be somewhat levelled before laying products down to the biggest headache of all being a load bearing beam that requires engineers and experts to properly replace… not to mention kitchen, bathrooms, sinks, material for flooring, drywall, doors etc etc… everything costs and requires monies we are out of.
Now this is the final hour, we have until April 1st, 2018 to raise the money, to get the help to help us finally have our home back. We are out of options and now I really need your help.
We are hoping that this “Go fund me page” will help us to reach out and get the assistance we desperately require.
I know that everyone has their own issues, that we all have hardships in our lives but this is an opportunity to really make a difference in a family’s life that you know personally or indirectly or are a warm hearted stranger… please help to circulate this plea and ask co workers, family and neighbours to help…please share our Go Fund Me Page on your social media to get people involved.
If you have further questions please message me, if you can offer professional services or products please message me and I hope each and everyone can find it in their hearts to donate as much as you can, as much as you would hope to get if this was your nightmare…either way please help me in spreading the word, in getting awareness and in raising money to keep us from being homeless which is the final step if we do not complete our home in time…APRIL 1st, 2018.
Organizer
Gisel Mereles
Organizer
New Tecumseth, ON
