Please Help Us Fix Our Home!

During our trip to NZ over Chrstmas and New Years, we arranged a house sitter to watch over our home and feed our animals. She was a single mother of two, and ecstatic at the opportunity to spend xmas in our home (she had been living in a motel). She insisted on paying us something, but we told her to buy some presents for the kids instead. Her 10-year-old daughter called me to thank us for allowing them to have a nice xmas. 

On New Years Day, Jacob returned home to find our house completely trashed. It turns out that she has an extensive criminal history, and was selling off our belongings (we assume to pay for drugs from what was left in our house). 

Our car had been driven and crashed, which makes sense after finding our liquor cabinet had been completely drunk dry. Our TV, three laptops, bikes, disc wheels, and PS4 were stolen, among many other things. Our daughter's room has been trashed, her books and toys are scattered outside, ripped to pieces. Our furniture has been stained and broken. The whole house is a complete bomb-site, our keys stolen and every room has been ransacked. We believed wholeheartedly that we could trust this person to look after our home for 10 days. Instead we come home to around $20k worth of damage/theft.

We are working with the police, but it is likely that we will not get anything back.

We've been through disbelief, rage and now we are just broken. This home is something that we have worked so hard for. It was a sanctuary for our family and now it may not even be safe for us. We've maxed out our credit card just to change the locks to the house and both cars, and our insurance company have refused to cover any of it. 

Any donation will be greatly appreciated, and will help us to make our house feel like home again. 

Thank you.