Perodeau House Fire Repair DIY fund
Donation protected
We are Dominic & Scarlett Perodeau - we are 'New Canadians' hailing from the United Kingdom & the United States, we met online and was talking for 3 monthe then 9/11 sadly happened and I said to Scarlett that life's too short do you want to get married? she accepted and I flew her up and just five days later we married at Tweed Ontario.
We worked so hard to rennovate the house ourselves and took it down to the studs rewired & replumbed it with new heating and windows and built an addition and wrap around porch - At the same time started our own business in the next village employing five people which ran for 11 years until we sadly had to close it down and had to start a new career in a rural area from scratch making minumum wage some 60km each way - I was happy and proud to be a working man again no matter the job or pay and needed to prove myself to the company and work my way up from the bottom to be a useful asset to the company.
On Wednesday May 11th at 3.30 am - we awoke to our smoke alarms going off - I went downstairs and found the source of the billowing smoke was a yellow fire behind the home office door and shouted to the wife to evacuate - I ran outside and grabbed a fire extinquisher and ran back in releasing my German Shepherd and Border Collie from there night-time cages and went to the fire and put the nozzle around the door and then hit the lever - It made it worse there was something fuelling the fire it went rapidly out of control to a deep red which then as i turned shot out the door gap and around the door with a huge cloud of thick black acrid smoke that was coming down - I couldnt breath and grabbed the front door handle and pulled the door was stuck then the glass panel fell out and all this melting foam i was in serious trouble i finally got the door open and ran out to my wife screaming for the fire dept.
I grabbed the garden hose and soaked myself down and approached the outside window - flames were coming out hitting the soffit and i battled those and took the flames inside - it kept flaring up in the far right corner and then shot upwards and then to the left corner eventually it appeared to go out and then the water stopped and at that point multiple fire trucks came rushing up the drive and over the lawns - I found my wife Scarlett shivering as litrelly we was in our bedclothes and i found an old duvet belonging to the dogs and wrapped it around her, four firemen entered the house in full breathing apparatus and then commenced smashing all our windows out to release the smoke - we asked them if they saw our cats and if they could grab the money we had laid out on the kitchen counter to pay the mortgage and bills the next day - the firemen handed us 3 melted balls of $20's - now theyre made of plastic that was a shocker it was all we had.
Paramedic's were called and they insisted that we get treatment and took us away - to be in the back of an ambulance watching all you have surrounded by red flashing lights and being forcibly driven away is the worst feeling then get scrubbed and countless blood & test machines be on oxygen for night then the long drive home from a friend and see the house - everything you worked for melted or charcoal ceilings down windows axed out car keys melted papers gone wedding ring missing finding 3 beloved cats dead in there sleep - One left that won't come to us - neighbours put us up our clothes were standing in stink so does my body of burnt fumes - Yes we're lucky to be alive indeed.
The return is going to take money we can't make easily We can work to clean - pull drywall run new cables & lay drywall - you can only do so much with so little so we will just have to do what we can to clear the debris get the power meter reinstalled and live in two rooms and work harder than ever before to get back - Our marriage is strong and so are our friendships local and globally and realizing we live in a community of people that really do care about neighbours.
We will remain and survive and hope one day to be able to help others facing this hell to get them through it - So if you know us or dont our situation is unfourtunatly a real nightmare - but we are not the kind of people to ask for a handout but need a help up - We want to do as much work as we can as we know how the house was built and restored and simply want to sleep in our own bed even if it does smell of creasote its our home.
We worked so hard to rennovate the house ourselves and took it down to the studs rewired & replumbed it with new heating and windows and built an addition and wrap around porch - At the same time started our own business in the next village employing five people which ran for 11 years until we sadly had to close it down and had to start a new career in a rural area from scratch making minumum wage some 60km each way - I was happy and proud to be a working man again no matter the job or pay and needed to prove myself to the company and work my way up from the bottom to be a useful asset to the company.
On Wednesday May 11th at 3.30 am - we awoke to our smoke alarms going off - I went downstairs and found the source of the billowing smoke was a yellow fire behind the home office door and shouted to the wife to evacuate - I ran outside and grabbed a fire extinquisher and ran back in releasing my German Shepherd and Border Collie from there night-time cages and went to the fire and put the nozzle around the door and then hit the lever - It made it worse there was something fuelling the fire it went rapidly out of control to a deep red which then as i turned shot out the door gap and around the door with a huge cloud of thick black acrid smoke that was coming down - I couldnt breath and grabbed the front door handle and pulled the door was stuck then the glass panel fell out and all this melting foam i was in serious trouble i finally got the door open and ran out to my wife screaming for the fire dept.
I grabbed the garden hose and soaked myself down and approached the outside window - flames were coming out hitting the soffit and i battled those and took the flames inside - it kept flaring up in the far right corner and then shot upwards and then to the left corner eventually it appeared to go out and then the water stopped and at that point multiple fire trucks came rushing up the drive and over the lawns - I found my wife Scarlett shivering as litrelly we was in our bedclothes and i found an old duvet belonging to the dogs and wrapped it around her, four firemen entered the house in full breathing apparatus and then commenced smashing all our windows out to release the smoke - we asked them if they saw our cats and if they could grab the money we had laid out on the kitchen counter to pay the mortgage and bills the next day - the firemen handed us 3 melted balls of $20's - now theyre made of plastic that was a shocker it was all we had.
Paramedic's were called and they insisted that we get treatment and took us away - to be in the back of an ambulance watching all you have surrounded by red flashing lights and being forcibly driven away is the worst feeling then get scrubbed and countless blood & test machines be on oxygen for night then the long drive home from a friend and see the house - everything you worked for melted or charcoal ceilings down windows axed out car keys melted papers gone wedding ring missing finding 3 beloved cats dead in there sleep - One left that won't come to us - neighbours put us up our clothes were standing in stink so does my body of burnt fumes - Yes we're lucky to be alive indeed.
The return is going to take money we can't make easily We can work to clean - pull drywall run new cables & lay drywall - you can only do so much with so little so we will just have to do what we can to clear the debris get the power meter reinstalled and live in two rooms and work harder than ever before to get back - Our marriage is strong and so are our friendships local and globally and realizing we live in a community of people that really do care about neighbours.
We will remain and survive and hope one day to be able to help others facing this hell to get them through it - So if you know us or dont our situation is unfourtunatly a real nightmare - but we are not the kind of people to ask for a handout but need a help up - We want to do as much work as we can as we know how the house was built and restored and simply want to sleep in our own bed even if it does smell of creasote its our home.
Organizer
Dominic Perodeau
Organizer
Tweed, ON