Personal disaster in Calfornia's PG&E power shutoff

[lambchopp59]

During the outage wednesday evening, this senior citizen had a senior moment. Resulting in a, well, ahem, cooking accident that totalled my trailer home of 20 years. Both me and the pup are okay, but as I was in the process of carpet shampooing, I had set the fire extinguisher away from the door to clean that area, so at the moment it was on the other side of the major blaze that set an office chair like a towering inferno. That job was on hold till the power came back on, so much for that now.
Now the local housing authority people are harassing me about moving the fire damaged unit by tomorrow. Lovely. I've already had to sacrifice my retirement account, got it coming FedEx overnight once Fidelity darn well decides they've made me jump enough hoops to get that. Now the local dump people want to charge me $2300 to dispose of the unit. OMG. Once again, nothing I can afford till the check comes.
Hopefully I can find temporary storage for the trailer till money for disposal, a new unit and all the hauling comes in.
By wednesday night this week, I'll be homeless sleeping in my car with the dog, again, because I cannot afford another night at the motel 666.
Shit happens. It's why I don't get attached to my "stuff". The old trailer made me a lot of money on travel work over the years, with so little to show for it. Seems every time I get on top, get in the green some new calamity comes along that knocks me all the way back down again. Job's got nothing on me, although I've never had thousands of animals nor currency... LOL

[Freedomofspeech]

1. So very sorry that you are enduring all of this...

Please take care. So much sadness in the world.

[lambchopp59]

3. Thanx, turns out one thing lined up for me so far today.

Found a place to store the damaged unit via a nearby friend since I posted earlier. That was the main thing worrying me, the rest after that is cleanup, wait for the check to FedEx. Still not looking forward to sleeping in the car till then, always makes for a rough night.
I'll find some way to turn a calamity into a positive thing.

[ARPad95]

2. Hugs to you!

Yikes! You're going through the wringer, LambChopp! Hope once you receive your retirement funds from Fidelity, everything gets back to normal for you as soon as possible. Will insurance cover the loss of your trailer?

[lambchopp59]

4. LOL, 20 year old trailer. Not much loss.

Dropped insurance at about it's 15 year mark, getting worse for wear then.
Again, compensation doesn't kick in to help the immediate needs.
But, despite relatively early withdrawl, I'll have enough for a nice, new replacement.

[ARPad95]

5. Happy for you getting a better home! nt

[Rhiannon12866]

6. Oh! I am so sorry, as well! What a terrible thing to happen to you now...

But, like you said, at least you and your pup are okay - hoping he's on the smaller side if you have to sleep in your car! Please check in and let us know how you're doing and if your fellow DUers can do anything to help out! Hugs to you and your pup from me and my pup, too!

[catrose]

7. Hi, I hope you'll call your local Red Cross and see what they can do for you.

It's been some years since I was on call to go to local disasters (most of them house fires), and I know things could have changed since then, but I've filled out lots of forms for people who were burned out of their homes to get, just as an example:
* hotel rooms (pet friendly!) for a few days
* replacement furniture
* replacement clothes
* replacement food (I used to keep the caseworker's office stocked with dog & cat food, not technically an RC benefit)
* replacement medicine
* help with finding a new place
* help with deposits
* help finding help
The Rs started infiltrating the RC in the 90s, but plenty of caseworkers and volunteers (still around 90% of the org) still want to do as much for people as possible.
We always said, "This is a gift from the American people." Please accept it if possible.

[redwitch]

8. Absolutely!

They will help, you’ll be glad you called them!

[catrose]

9. Thanks for the back up! I hope he can see the responses.

[lambchopp59]

12. Thanx, but a few colleagues stopped by to help

Shortly after fearing I was down and out again, my best friend stealthily paid for my room through payday and took Caleb to the vet appointment for me while I worked on disaster cleanup. Thanks for the suggestion anyhow. One odd irony to all this was that since I had much of furniture removed for carpet cleaning, there was nothing of great value lost in all this that won't be replaced by a new trailer. Our power outage interrupted that chore. Cleanup finally done, new gravel and shed paint coming, and I've already found some new models that are roomy and attractive in my price range.
I was still in some shock when I wrote out my piece here, and the Motel 666 I'm staying at has good pet accommodation and relatively quiet.

[catrose]

15. I'm glad things are looking up

I understand about the shock. My aunt's home burned down when I was a little girl, and I remember how it affected them and all of us. And we had a fire on our land when we were building our house. Only construction materials were destroyed, but it was still awful.

[lambchopp59]

11. Thanx, but a few colleagues stopped by to help

Shortly after fearing I was down and out again, my best friend stealthily paid for my room through payday and took Caleb to the vet appointment for me while I worked on disaster cleanup. Thanks for the suggestion anyhow. One odd irony to all this was that since I had much of furniture removed for carpet cleaning, there was nothing of great value lost in all this that won't be replaced by a new trailer. Our power outage interrupted that chore. Cleanup finally done, new gravel and shed paint coming, and I've already found some new models that are roomy and attractive in my price range.
I was still in some shock when I wrote out my piece here, and the Motel 666 I'm staying at has good pet accommodation and relatively quiet.

[Hortensis]

10. Lambchopp, don't know if you're already completely aware of

possibilities for used MHs in your area, and sounds like you already know the direction you're going.

But fwiw, in Florida where we have a snowbird place, many people are always trying to sell nice MHs that are in parks with heavy monthly space rents and fees. They no longer want or need the MHs and really need to stop those bills for hundreds of dollars every month. As a result, the prices asked for the units themselves are often very, very low, far below anything available through a dealer.

There might be fewer where you are, but wherever people are renting the land, someone's going to be needing to sell their unit. They don't advertise for people to purchase the unit and haul away, MHs are always offered as if glued to the lot, but the parks have no rights over them and buyers can just have them loaded up and moved out.

We almost went that way. We didn't, but I'm happy knowing that if we somehow lost our home and were close to destitute I could use our last thousands to choose a nice home and a nice place to put it, someplace pretty with nice neighbors where we'd be happy living.

Btw, if we'd purchased outside the county and brought it in, it would have had to be a newer one that met current codes and thus was more expensive. But if we purchased within our county, anything that met occupancy standards was legal. I saw local single wides in good condition for $3-6K. Transportation costs were so low compared to the great deals being offered around the state, though, that I was about to consider units hundreds of miles away from our lot.

Hope your life is comfy and back to normal very soon.

[lambchopp59]

13. Been there, done that one

To discover it's a bit of a catch-22 getting someone else out of a loss incurring property to incur further loss myself later, largely due to losing that home in the post-W recession (2010) even with improvements.
The trailer that burnt was a nice one when new, as will be the new one.
This is a medium sized travel trailer I'm replacing. The old one made me plenty of money, utilizing it on travel jobs for the last 20 years. Good and bad RV parks always make for savings on rent while the travel contracts pay the average apt. rent most locations. This was simply an apocalyptic end to a useful item.
However, I'm following the wild west pattern so much of my family does, has done: Eschew any high maintenance property ownership and Nomad around between hot spring, casino and pristine campground destinations plentiful in the western U.S., both my older brothers are doing exactly that. We have remote properties (low taxes!) to occasionally boondock. I have less than 5 years till retirement now anyway, and a travel trailer less than 5 years old will retain some trade in value I plan on retiring in a modest motorhome towing my smart car.
I'm staying at the pet-friendly space I rented in Lake county Ca, a hidden gem with a bit of humorous flyover-country charm left to it and a friendly workspace. However, come 2024:

[Hortensis]

14. Oh, wild-westing sounds wonderful, especially with family to

meet up with. I could definitely do that, for some years anyway; but for my husband, having friends around is most important, ergo wintering in retirement areas where lots of other old fishermen are found. We do have a 15' TT -- kitchen/bath with shower/dry warm bed -- which can follow almost anywhere our 4-wheel can pull it.

Congrats then. Great plan.