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Lost My Cats to Housefire


nammi_nammi

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Hi, I'm new here and just joined.  The night of December 3rd our car suddenly caught on fire shortly after my husband returned from a work call, and it caught our garage door on fire.  The fire quickly spread to the study above it and the basement, igniting an old fuel tank we never used but still had a little fuel in it in the area under the study.  It exploded.  Needless to say, the study is nothing but a charred mess.  The curtains on the windows gone, all my books burnt to a crisp, all my music I stored in there just melted wax.  But this room was special, too, as several of my 10 cats loved this room.  It was where I kept the kitty furniture.  It had large windows and my old daybed, so it was a comfy place to sleep and look out.  The fire went from there throughout the rest of the house, mostly in the attic.  Much of the furniture in the other rooms are okay but damaged by water and smoke.  Firemen ruined several things, there are doors broken down, holes in the walls, etc.  It's impossible to live in the house.  We had to leave.  Until last week we were staying with my parents, which was rough and only heightened my anxiety.  I couldn't grieve the way I needed to, and my parents didn't seem to understand.  We've been in a rental home now for over a week, and I was doing okay.  Some crying here and there - until yesterday.  I lost 8 and possibly 10 of my cats to this fire.  8 of them were all found under the couch by firemen, and they brought them out and placed them under our pine tree.  My husband buried them the next day in the back yard with the kitties I've lost in the past.  I never got to see them - probably a good thing.  The other 2, my Tadpole and James, have yet to be found, even though my husband and various other family members have looked in the mess in the house for them.  I was sitting in the neighbor's yard and watched the whole thing happen for 3 hours.  The fire kept reigniting and was hard to get out.  I say possibly, though, because we caught wind that someone (never did find out who) said they saw 2 cats running from the house.  My husband and neighbor knocked out some of the windows as fast as they could for the cats, but I'm afraid it didn't help.  So on top of the loss of my 8 cats, I've been going back to the property every evening and calling for my cats, searching with a flashlight, walking around in the surrounding area.  I've put up posters offering a reward for each cat found.  We've had a few people report seeing cats that looked like them in the area, but I myself haven't seen them.  We also have some traps out but have only caught the strays that have been there since long before this happened.  We continue to feed them though this may be detrimental to catching anything in the trap on the porch near the food.  The second night after the fire, while out with a flashlight I saw 2 sets of glowing eyes sitting near each other, and as I called to them, one was coming toward me.  I'm almost convinced it was them, but the neighbor's wife came out and called to him - he was in the yard talking to my husband - and this scared them away.  I've not had a trace since.  Yesterday seemed to be the turning point.  I'm starting to lose hope and feel desperate.  I'm getting angry.  I feel this is an evil game by God, and I'm ready to quit playing.  I just want my cats back!!  Yesterday morning and afternoon I cried and cried.  The rest of the day just felt so down.  Same today but not as badly.  I really need to talk to someone, but I'm in a rural area.  We have no support groups here for pet loss, and I don't think we'd be able to afford going to a counselor.  The rental home is costing us so much.  I want to take in my sister's cat that she wants to get rid of; and I think another cat to care for would help me, but it would cost $200 to do that here as well as $20 added to the monthly rent.  If I were to find one or both of my cats on top of that, it would be outrageous.  It just seems everything is against me.  Plus I'm just missing the cats I lost so badly.  They were my life.  My world revolved around them despite having one son.  I've lost cats before to illness but have always had my other cats here.  Now I have none.  It's the first time in 25 years I've not had a cat inside with me to take care of and love. 

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Sorry for the loss of your beloved cats I too have several cats and wonder what would happen if a fire broke out cats do hide unfortunately

Keep looking ans setting traps for your other cats they may likely come back also did you alert the local animal shelters and vets in case someone brings them in

You can post on fb and Craigslist their lost and try zachalert and several other org dedicated to help find lost pets

If you message me your private email I can fwd you some resources that ay help you I am very active in animal rescue

Sorry again for your loss

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Thank you Steve's mom for the kind words.  I've been having a really hard time with it the last few days.  Seems so many things trigger memories of them or of being at home.  It's so hard to cope with the lost of animals and home, too.  My kitties meant the world to me.  I have one son, and I think he even got jealous of them.  I've always been a tremendous cat lover.  I will message you my e-mail.  I'd really appreciate the resources.  It's another evening we've returned without seeing a trace of them.  I'm starting to lose hope and despair, but I know I can't give up.  At least until I know for sure they are dead or alive.  My husband is going to do as thorough a search of the house as he can for them before it's demolished.  I've not alerted the vets here but have posted on fb.  Unfortunately I'm in a rural area without many animal services, so there is only a small shelter that takes dogs only.  It's funny that you do all you can to protect your home and animals.  I too often thought about fires and tried to be careful with heaters, the stove, etc.  Life is indeed ironic.  Our fire was started by the car outside.  It caught on fire under the hood and blazed toward the garage door, catching it on fire.  We never would've imagined.     

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I am an animal rescuer who has done a lot of work rescuing animals in disasters ,I did any disasters plans for shelters ect..and house fires are the most common type of threat to animals in many instances

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I never realized until this happened that it is.  I hear about fires and animal loss so much now.  Someone who lived near us lost their home a few years ago and lost their 6 animals - dogs and cats.  Always hearing about fires on the local news, and now I notice when they say how many animals were lost.    

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Having one of those days where I'm just missing my cats so badly.  I'm starting to have panic attacks but can't see a therapist cuz we have no insurance.  Plus I realize this is pretty much my own battle, and there's nothing anyone can do to take this pain away or change what happened, so I feel so alone.  I think of our house being demolished soon and panic inside.  I don't think I'm going to be able to deal with that.  I keep remembering things like my kitties sitting in the windows or laying in front of the door in the summer.  I always had things open for them when the weather was good.  There are tears in the screens from Sophie's and Chloe's claws.  All this is going to be wrecked, and it's killing me inside.  Like all my memories are going to be taken away with it.  Nothing left tangible to hold onto.  And - they're just all gone.  All my kitties wiped out at once.  I'm having a really hard time with it today.  I took my son to school this morning and where I usually had kitties always greeting me whenever they hear me come in the door, there's just silence.          

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Did you ever find the last 2 kitties in the house debris

If not hold on to the hope they are still put there alive and well maybe someone took them in maybe they will still return nearby and you can trap ,retrieve them.

Miracles do happen ,sometimes it best to image the best outcome.once during a wildfire disaster many years ago ,many houses were destroyed a person sent us a rescue request to recuse her kitten that was in her house when she was evacuated and we went to the house expecting to find nothing since everything was burned ,but we went to look anyway ...seems odd but sometimes even recovering a dead pet ...gives closure to some people.

After looking all over and ready to leave ...we heard a faint mew..the kitten who was quite small had survived somehow and was under some debris and a ladder all wet and sooty but alive...that women was so happy to see us bring her kitty to her even though everything else was destroyed and gone just having her pet alive meant so much to her.

Hope for the best ,miracles do happen and if you don't find their bodies ...likely they may be alive and well somewhere

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Thanks Steve's Mom.  Nope, still looking every day for my Tadpole and my James.  Dread going out lately because is so cold, but...  What we do for love...  My husband hasn't gone through the house yet.  He tried contacting the company he wants to do the demolition but couldn't reach them the other day, so that's still up in the air at the moment.  That's such a good story - glad the kitten survived.  Yes, I think I could deal with this so much better if I could just find my cats and have them back.  It's hard enough grieving the 8 I lost, but the uncertainty of where the other 2 are and not knowing...  I do want my husband to look through the house VERY thoroughly before it is destroyed.  I just have to know if they're there somewhere instead of lost.  I did have James closed up in Noah's room right before the fire started to eat his special food separate from the others.  His door is broken out, so he would've had to have dashed out before there was much smoke and somehow found the broken windows to go out one of them.  When I get hopeless and think the worst, I remember the 2 sets of glowing eyes I saw sitting together in the field, and I think that had to be them.  So I continue looking.  I'm going to make some new posters - I don't have their actual pictures but have found some online that look exactly like them.  Maybe if someone did take them in they'll see these pictures and recognize them.  Or at least people will see the new posters and know I'm still looking.  The pictures will show them what to look for.  We're in a rural area, so if they were hit by any cars we'd no doubt see.  Things aren't moved too quickly, if at all, out in the country.  Have had to turn my head driving by sometimes.  Fortunately don't think that's happened.  Yes, just try to keep thinking positively.  They have to be out there somewhere if they're not in the debris.  Til I know, I have to keep looking. 

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My whole house burned down on the 5th of this December and I too lost 10 of my 14 cats and I too was born to love kitties! I always joke about this and say I love my bed filled with pu$$ys lol :). But can't really home anymore because the grieving comes in waves of heaving sobs. Like you no one understands what kind of relationship I actually had with my kitty's, I "mommy cat (ed)" them! I have so many pictures and memories and have lost literally everything all we had was the clothes on our backs! I hate this world, I hate the people that say "well at least it wasn't your children" and I want so badly to say back to them "well thank you Karen! That makes me feel so much better!" Of course I would be saying that with as much disdain in my voice as possible. But I get it, not many other people do and their way of helping isn't exactly helpful it's more hurtful than it is helpful we only found one kitty so far and we believe it was our meep, but it's winter here and everything's frozen and all of my cats were in the house along with two bearded dragons and three rats and I love them like my children I had to bottle feed a majority of them because I'm the only person around here that's willing to take the time to actually help a helpless animal so yeah they raise them like my children and it hurts like I lost like 10 children to that fire if not more because I love those little beardies like my kids too just like I love the little rats but I really love the kitties and it breaks my heart to know that they had to die in a fire I would have willingly given everything I own if it could have spared them. I'm so very angry at the world at fire at God at the devil that every religion and especially at Christmas and I'm living in a fifth wheeler camper and it's flipping cold with four kids and the two cats that came to me right afterwards and I have two other cats that are so scared they run every time I try to catch them or go outside so all I can do is just set food out and hope that I can bond with them eventually and get them to come back home and realize it's me and I didn't do that to them. I'm so sorry for your loss and I'm so sorry that your heart feels just like mine that I wouldn't wish this on anybody.

      grieving with you,

                Jen.              

   If anyone feels like sharing my gofundme link it would be so very appreciated especially since it's winter here and we are heating and running our power with a generator and propane, so we cannot afford a Christmas this year and we spent the 2600. On our gofundme on a fifth wheeler so we had somewhere to rest our heads otherwise we were living in our vehicle with four kids a dog and 3 cats :/. Thank you too for all your kindness in actually reading this too!  

 gf.me/u/zbz6s4

 

 

 

 

 

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10 hours ago, cantelope32 said:

I hate the people that say "well at least it wasn't your children"

I guess some people always try to look for good in everything but I understand how hearing that can make you feel they invalidated your loss.  We all know that your loss of home is very real.  My son bought a home in Lyons, OR, the whole town burned up a couple of months ago except the one he bought and maybe four others, everything gone, the devastation feels like a sucker punch driving into it, the signs are gone, just mud, burned up debris, it's horrible.  He put a washer & dryer into an out building so people will have a place to do their laundry while rebuilding their homes, staying in trailers meanwhile.  So hard to digest emotionally.  I wish so much for your family, kids, dogs...All of this is hard enough but to suffer the loss of your cats too, it's too much.  I'm going through a lot right now, this is my hardest hitting year financially, retired and income insufficient to handle all the demands right now, so I can't even imagine facing what you are.  No homeowner's insurance??

https://www.griefhealingblog.com/2018/12/pet-loss-coping-with-trauma-of.html

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Hi, I know this was a while back and I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ve been searching the internet seeking help! Our house burned down recently almost a month ago and our cat was in the house. I broke a window trying to get back in but the smoke was too thick and I don’t think the cat made it. I have an overwhelming amount of grief and guilt that I couldn’t get him. And I don’t know how to heal, I keep crying and beating myself up. I hope you can help me

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@Hennaw  Yes this is an old thread you resurrected, the person hasn't been on here in years. 

I am so sorry for your loss!  My heart goes out to you, I can't imagine all you are going through!  :wub: Losing our animals or people are the hardest, possessions can be replaced but they can't, and worrying about him is likely making you sick!

If your cat stayed in the house, he likely would have succumbed to smoke inhalation before the fire ever reached him, so he would not have felt anything but gone to sleep instead.  I hope it brings you some degree of comfort to know that he didn't suffer.  But that doesn't alleviate the pain of loss, and I don't discount the grief you also feel over loss of your possessions, because we attach memories/emotion to them and it can feel very invasive to have them all wiped out at once!  I had a roommate that went through this.

I strongly encourage you to find a grief counselor to help you with this, it can be an awful lot to deal with on your own.  You might want to talk to your insurance for a referral or check with a government service for one.

Fire-Two animals lost
Fire -Recovering emotionally

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I am so sorry.  I hope you look up the two links I posted before your post...it helps to know others have gone through it, although II wish no one ever had to go through this.

 Do you care to tell us about your animal/s?

Grief counseling would be a good place to start.  Grief specialist

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