On a beautiful Friday morning in the quiet little country town of Pine Island, Minnesota (population 3263) a family welcomed their new infant son. When life is so brand new and so tiny you become very aware just how fragile and dependent that life is. Witnessing a new life coming into the world fills you with emotions. Excitement, joy, love and fear just to name a few. As a new father there is nothing you wouldn’t do to protect and care for your infant child. Life is full of possibilities and new beginning. Life is good.
Forty-eight hours later you are getting ready to go to your house to grab some clothes for mom and babies new car seat, so you can bring your new family home safe and sound.
Then the unthinkable happens…
A battery that you left charging for your toddler son’s toy car has caught fire and destroyed the 2 car garage that is attached to your home. The garage was full of chemicals, weed sprayers and tons of plastics that sent toxic smoke and soot thru out your families home.
You leave the hospital and race home to assess the situation. The wretched odor hits you as soon as you open your truck door. Opening the door to your house you are immediately assaulted with the vision of soot, insulation and water all over the floor. And on your right just inside the entry sits Grandma’s prized organ that’s been in the family for many years. Your son’s car seat that you were going to bring him home in for the first time today sits on the table. Destroyed. Your wife’s favorite jacket is hanging in the closet and that bottle of wine from your wedding that you were saving for a special occasion sits by the organ. All of it covered in black, toxic soot. All of it contaminated. And all you can think about is how can I ever bring my new son into this house?
This was such a horrible situation that this young father found himself in a couple of months ago. Now add on top of his current situation the fact that his father a short time ago passed away from cancer that was caused by chemicals.
He’s faced with momma and baby checking out of the hospital today and no home to go to. He has no idea where to go, what to do or who to even call to help him put his home back together and make sure that it is safe for his family to live in.
Handling The Contents
Service Restoration a local restoration company got the call and immediately went out to look at the job. Ray their contents manager knew they needed help on this one as it is very sensitive and they were new to contents restoration. So he called “Ask Annissa” and hired her to come out and do the job with him at her side all the while training his contents crew.
We arrived on the job site 48 hours later after a 4 hour plane ride and driving 1 1/2 hours thru the Minnesota corn fields. What we found was a totaled attached garage that needed demo to the studs. All contents in the garage were destroyed as well so inventory was needed.
The structure team started on the garage pulling out contents so we could log them destroyed and dispose of them. After all contents were out of the area the demolition could start and insulation could be removed out of the attic area. The garage was attached to the house however the structural damage was isolated to the garage except for one bedroom that was sprayed with water from the fire department and we had to remove the flooring and cut up the walls 2’ and dry out that area.
While the demo was started we began processing the contents. This was a little tricky as our homeowner and young father was terrified to have any of their items cleaned and returned to the home. Ray and I spent time with our homeowner going over the processes that we would use to clean items and educating him to relieve his fears.
Based upon his fears we had a conversation with the adjuster and got approval to replace all of the babies items ie clothes, toys, books, etc. We also destroyed all pillows and food thru out the home. The adjuster was very understanding and gave us the leeway to make the necessary calls without concern. This made our job much easier.
Educating both the homeowner and adjuster was very vital to our remediation and cleaning going smooth and without a hitch.
Our pack-out and demo took 5 days to complete with a crew of 12. During this time frame we logged all non-salvaged and salvaged items, transported contents to the facility to clean and completed demo and dry-out on structure.
As restorers we knew what could and could not be cleaned but having the adjuster understand the homeowners concerns and past history was key in the experience for all involved to have the result we were after. Asking the homeowner to tell us the story of what happened and walk thru the job with us before we began our work helped us to know how to efficiently and effectively complete our work.
It was so important when dealing with the contents that we involved our homeowner in the entire process. Their lives are already feeling out of control and by involving them we gave them a sense of control which makes our job so much easier and their experience less stressful.
The structure was put on hold at this point until the homeowner and the insurance company could reach an agreement on the scope of work to be done.
Contents were cleaned and returned to the property to be stored until structure remediation is completed.
To summarize our key to success on this job was listening. Listening to our clients fears and concerns gave him the peace of mind he needed to get thru this experience and gave him the confidence in our ability to help him and his family put this devastating ordeal behind them.