Tenant called last night, and her house is missing!!!

[Andrew Fidler]

There are so many ways to present this, but lets just start by saying no one was hurt and everything seems to just be an insurance claim and a displaced tenant who is being taken care of in every way.

I got a call last night from my tenant of 2.5 years saying that she returned home from visiting family over the holidays and HER HOUSE WAS GONE.

When she pulled in the driveway she found that the whole house was torn down...the garage, the house, the landscaping...everything is gone. (Ok well the house is there in theory, it's just had the air removed from it and it's in the basement)

I drove over this morning and here's my rental:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75744546/IMG_1...

I am being told by the Toledo Fire Dept that there was a fire reported on Monday January 1st at 4am and the structure was demolished by 6am...full report requested but it seems to be have been a pretty straight forward demolition. (There is a school four properties away so they may have wanted to prevent school kids from investigating the unsafe structure) 

It's not humorous at all that a tenant lost her home, I am unsure if she had renters insurance but I set her up with my church St Pauls Episcopal in Maumee where they operate a food pantry and keep a charity fund for just this purpose and she already has the red cross housing her. She is an LMHA Section 8 tenant who has been with me solidly for over 30 months and her call to me was to ask about rehousing. (Ironically I just posted about ongoing delays and inefficiency at HUD/LMHA here in Toledo so I will be unable to move her to another of my houses. I have a network of fellow investors including PIN Toledo so I don't anticipate she will have any issues rehousing as long as LMHA can process her voucher)

The good news is I had insurance in place and the claim has been filed. I will keep the group apprised of the process and lessons I learned...going on 8 years in the business this is my 3rd fire and first total loss event.