Mike and Rhea Apartment Fire 911

Hello everyone,

Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to read this GoFundMe post for Mike and I. I am a little weary of what to write here as luckily weve never had to ask you all for help this way before. I will start by catching everyone up on our current situation....

Just about 2 weeks ago, on October 5th, we had an apartment fire, and now we are having to find a new place to live and have been bleeding money staying in a low-cost hotel since that day. We are very close to having run through all our funds. Making things worse, this was right after we had paid October's rent and our landlord is being very difficult through all this and did not help with providing temporary housing for us. 

The fire started in the neighbor's apartment right below ours. 
Unbeknownst to us, they had set off several bug foggers and had left the apartment while it did it's thing...  Well, our neighbors had set the foggers off without turning off the gas, and apparently the fire started because the foggers were set off right next to a lit pilot/gas line. 

Luckily, Mike and I did smell the smoke pretty quickly, and we were able to get out of the apartment and call the fire department, and they arrived pretty fast.  Mike, Azalea( our doggy), and I are unharmed, and actually we didnt lose much to the fire other than everything being smoke smell stained. Unfortunately, this fire brought the attention of the city code enforcement. Apparently, my landlord never had the property signed up as multi-family, and she also had a very large number of code violations. Beyond the severe fire damage in the unit below ours, and the repairs we also would need to get the building and property to code, she now also has to be rezoned. All utilities shut off and cannot be reconnected until she is in compliance and rezoned. 
Being  the amazing person that my landlord is ( SARCASM), she instead has decided to evict the downstairs neighbors and also my husband and I stating that she is not responsible for helping us with temporary housing and that we are on our own....even though we just had paid rent,....So...We are shocked by her handling of this situation like she has and especially as we are innocent of blame for this happening, and we have lived in our apartment for 8 years and have been really good tenants the entire time. We have put up with the slum lord behavior through all that time, but we just had not thought that something like this would happen and how the landlady has reacted.

All that being said, we are in good health and trying to stay positive through dealing with the last couple stressful weeks. 

We are asking for help because we need to get moved into a new home, and we are pretty much out of funds as far as food, gas, and the hotel until we get moved.

Also, if anyone has dealt with a situation similar to this and has had a landlord act so poorly and cold heartedly, we would love to hear any tips or advice on how you dealt with the situation. We have called a tenant advocacy group and we have started to look into free legal advice and assistance. Surely, the landlord should have had to help us somewhat as we did just pay the month's rent and had been living there so many years...Anyone know the laws about this?


That  being said, if you all can help us by donating whatever you are able, any amount of help (big or small) will be so greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for reading this request!

We hope everyone is doing well, and we pray that none of you have this happen. It's not fun at all!

Sincerely,

Mike, Rhea, and Azalea

P.S.-- We have never used GoFundMe before. We are not really sure how easy or quick everything works. Im really hoping it works easily, quickly, and that it doesnt give anyone trouble.  However,If anyone does have any trouble using the donation page or prefers to use another method to send us help, please let me or Mike know what we can do to assist you in any way.  We are flexible and will absolutely do whatever it takes to make this easiest on the donors. We know you guys have busy lives as well, and we are so blessed for you all that have taken the time to read this and donate. Trust me when I say that we understand if you are unable to help us in a financial way, but if you could please share this post, that is amazing help just the same! We are praying that the donations needed for us to relocate will come together quickly so that the help we do get does not get wasted as we tread water at this hotel. Again, we are so thankful for all size donations and spreading this post. Thank you for keeping us fed and keeping a roof over our head. Our pup, Azalea, says thank you too!!

Feel free to message us on facebook or email us directly if you have any questions, concerns, or advice in regards to our situation dealing with the landlord's handling of all this.

LOVE ALWAYS- RHEA, MIKE, AND AZALEA