About this Project

It all started on Jan 1, 2009 around 11:30pm . I was in the process of wrapping up my laundry duties for the night as my husband and our house quests that we had in town for the holidays turned in for the night..
I keep hearing a popping noise and thought it was a cat scouring around on the side of the house . Not thinking it was anything else more Seriously, I went to turn in for the night .

However to my surprise in our master bedroom my husband and I heard a cracking noise again , this time within our walls near the sockets, we both look at each other and he said we must have mice that got into the walls .  I told him that it was impossible because after we renovated the home from Hurricane Katrina, The studs ran up to down not crossways . And the attic was so secured that we applied  complete floor boards to walk on, so they would be no way for it to be something within the walls or attic.

He was finishing up his normal habit of reading his bible . About 15 minutes later the dryer buzzer keep going off, so off I went to even the clothes out and restart the dryer. That buzzer must have buzzed off 3-4 times within a 30 minute period. On the last buzzard sound when  I got up to check on the dryer there was more funny sounds comes from the sockets in our room and as I walked down the hall to approarch the laundry room, I can see this Orange and Red GLOW .. It reminded me of the Poltergeist Movie. Still not understanding what was going on  I called out to my husband to see the orange glow .. When we both got to the end of the hall by the laundry room, which the door was cracked open he pulled the door open to investigate, flames shot out like with a whiffing sound . We both jump back and excape barely, we needed to rescue everyone out of the home . When I tell you the flames spread so quickly we excaped by the skin of our teeth. Mind you for some reason it blew a total hole in the roof to say it was an electric dryer.
My neighbors hearing the blast was thinking that it was rocket bombs and fireworks because it happen New Years Day Night . They wasn't alarm at first. 

That night was so disasterous for us . It took 7 firetrucks and 22 fireman to get the fire under control. And at the sametime, 2 of those firetrucks crashed into park vehicles that was on our street when they tried to make the diificult turn on our street that is a cul de sac.  

Redcross was disbatch out to us, and provided us lodging for 3 days. Mind you we had a total of 13 people and only 4 of them were out of town quest . My husband stayed and  became security in our  van to prevent vandalism while everyone else went to the hotel . Around 4:30 my husband and neighbor calls me on the cell to say that the house have reblazed from hot spots. OMG !!!  I lost it then. I needed the CRAZY HOUSE ..
They disbatch 3 more fire trucks to put the flames out again...  It took a lil over a hour to get it under control the 2nd time. What didn't burned the first time was totally finished off the 2nd go round. NOTHING absolutely NOTHING  could be salvage..  Our whole life possesions gone again .

We actually lived in Holiday Inn Expess Hotel for 10 months  ( Jan 6 to Oct 31 ) We were still waiting on the Mortgage Company and the Insurance Company to pacify one another . Meanwhile we then we moved in with relatives until we was able to find rental housing ..
 
Fast forwarding to dealing with the insurance company. ( State Farm )  Wow ..  dealing with them was a piece of cake after waiting over a year 13 months.  . Eventually they sent us the check which was made out to us and our mortgage company . But it was the mortgage company that gave us the blues . They first put the check in a Escrow Account and left it there for more than 9 months which forced us to hire a lawyer . Going back and forth with them ( Mortgage Company )  so we can start rebuilding .
 Eventually to make a long story short, they eventually took the check out of the Escrow account and paid off our Mortgage and sent us what was left out of it . Our lawyer used  all Legal avenues in court to fight them with this. The courts allowed the mortgage comapny to keep those funds and have them applied to our balance to pay off the loan. Which was OUTRAGEOUS !!  It's not like we were behind in our payments for them to take the money . We continue to pay our payments despite not having a home and living in a hotel while we were diplaced.

This was very devastating to us since after our loan was paid off and our attorney received his fees we only was left with enough to comply with the city and demo everything except the brick. We reframed the entire home. Now  trying to  finish our home paycheck to paycheck have become a daunting task ..  The City gave us our Permit to start our renovations on 12/20/2010.
This disaster and all aspects of it has taking a toll on my health .  At the age of 44 my cardiologist is very concern with my overall health especially since my last 2 EKG 's showed drastic changes with my heart. Possible small heart attacks, which is all stress related.. I am now on cardiac meds, which is complicating other things.

And to top it off, My husband is now facing another blow, since he is employed with the United States Post Office as a Letter Carrier..  His job is now hanging on the limb since they are trying to close out the main post office here in New Orleans.

Meanwhile we were still dealing with the City Code Enforement Judgement against us, we thought it couldn't get any worst then it is, the city have now put a lien on our property because we are consider in violation of the code for not having the home renovated in a timely manner . We are NOT able to pay our taxes on the property until the fines are met first. The city had us go before the board and they have access penalties of $500.00 per day at first . Then my husband had to hire the attorney again to fight for us in our behalf, showing all documentions of why the home was NOT put back together in it's entirety ( because the mortage company took the insurance check and paid the loan off instead of allowing us to use it to contract with a contractor to renovate ) The only recoarse they gave us was to reduce our fine to $200.00 a day..  After filling an appeal, the Cap amount of the lien against us is $8112.67 .

The city also required that we hired a Machanical Engineer and a Basic Engineer to provide us with blueprints in order to obtain building permits . We have gone thru the financial struggles of taking care of that.

Now that the daily fees have stopped against us, we had paid some money toward the fines and have return  to another hearing in regards to the home . The city have given us an option to get the house completely renovated and produce all documents and photos which will in turn, allow them to send out an inspector to verify our compliance, then and only then will they forgive the fine fee.

So this brings me to Micro Giving, to ask for assistance by any means necessary . Usually it's me that find ways to give and assist others with their needs, however the table have turned .  We are havng difficulty  .  Coming up with the money for the New Wire Electrical work $8500.00, Plumbing $6000.00, Sheetrock $4000.00 , flooring $4000.00, Stuuco $8000.00, A/C alone cost over $10,000.00 because the home is 2500 sqft upstairs and downstaris and it requires 2 units, a 4 ton and a 3 ton.  I did not even include the cabinets and fixtures along with other Misc ..

Photos of the house fire will be included and we will provide whatever documents that is needed to this Organization to verify.

 
Any assistance we get is Greatly Appreciated .

The Kennedy Family