FRESH START AFTER FIRE! ❤️

***UPDATE***

June and I have been approved for a new home! A beautiful 2 bedroom unit on the lake. We are so excited!!!! Your earlier donations helped IMMENSELY getting us through the wreckage and to this point. We couldn’t have done it without you.

At this point, our last step is furnishing the unit. We have ZERO furniture

Anything else you can send would go directly to the staples, just to get us started again with a clean slate! We appreciate you and I hope this is the last time I’ll need to crowd fund and will instead be able to help others with their ventures. Thank you so much!!!

This morning around 6am I woke up with my dog in a panic. There was a terrible, overwhelming smell coming from my bedroom. A couple hours prior (4am) I had been awakened in bed, in my bedroom, to a strange smell. I got up to investigate, checked outlets, made sure stove was off, everything seemed fine. But the smell was so bad in the bedroom, I grabbed my dog and we went to sleep in the living room. In my delirious tired state, I thought maybe my dog had thrown up or that there was a bad smell outside coming in through the windows. Darla and I went back to sleep in the living room until being suddenly awoken by the smell 2 hours later. I grabbed her quickly and got up, turned the corner and saw smoke billowing out of my bedroom. I couldn’t breathe and raced out of my unit in a pair of shorts, bare feet, and a crop top. I pounded on my apartment managers door (he lives downstairs) and told him we need to evacuate and that I’m calling the fire dept. At that point is when the fire alarm started going off. My manager tried to enter my unit but could not. Everyone from the building came racing outside. It was cold and scary.

The fire department showed up within just a couple minutes it seemed like. They went right into the building. About 5 minutes later I saw them pull my mattress out the front door. It was scorched and only the mattress springs were left. It sent me into tears.

The fire took about 30 mins to put out. There was a small fire but mostly smoke. My partner came and saved me and brought me shoes and a jacket.

Walking into my place after the fire was shocking and sad. My bedroom was destroyed. Some things luckily were not affected like higher hanging art or things that were further away but they were still affected by the smoke. This whole day has been a blur.

The fire department couldn’t quite figure out what started the fire as the heater in my unit wasn’t turned on and the outlets were fine but they still believe it was an electrical fire that somehow originated from the heater.

A couple months ago I renewed my car insurance and in doing so, I also got rental insurance. Devastatingly, when I logged in today, it said my rental insurance had been canceled even though I had been paying my car insurance every month. I’m not sure what happened as I believed the auto and rental were paid together at the same time.

With all that said, I am pretty Fucked right now. All my carpet needs to be replaced and all my clothing was exposed to the smoke because I have an open closet. I am feeling really stressed, anxious and devastated. I had just cleaned my place, filled up the fridge with groceries, and made a cute little nook for June in the living room. I can no longer live here until this work is done.

Any donation you send will go directly to helping my replace damages in my apartment. I really don’t know how much they will be at this point. And I don’t expect anything as I know we all have our own troubles and stressors but I’d be so grateful.

Thank you so much for reading and considering, I appreciate my people and this community so so much. I also want to send a big thank you to the Seattle Fire Department who showed up sooo quickly, were super kind, and did an amazing job. So grateful to anyone whose job it is to put themselves at risk to help others.