It Really Happened

Before moving into a new rental you want to give a thorough inspection of the property for damages that occurred before your occupancy.

We've been given 10 days by IPMG to fill out the "green form" to note any such damages....



Last night after a hard days work for Phil chopping and stacking fire wood in his new wood shed it made perfect sense to start up the old wood stove for heat, (Gas doesnt get connected until Tuesday).
After a wonderful walk across the street to the grocery store Jenna started to prepare their first dinner in their new home while Phil proudly stoked the roaring fire. While water boiled on the stove that roaring fire soon sounded more than a cute romantic blaze but an actual jet engine in the middle of their living room.
"Babe, what is that sound! Why is it doing that?" Jenna exclaimed as her and Phil both stood dumbfounded staring at the origination of the troubling roar.
"I think, its a flu fire!" Phil quickly responded as he ran outside to discover clouds of black smoke rolling out of the chimney.
Jenna had heard of a flu fires but wasn't sure what they were or how bad they were. A quick phone call to her dad would answer her questions. He confirmed the roar was indeed a flu fire. She learned everything would be fine as long as you shut off the oxygen to the stove and no smoke seeped into the house meaning interior burning...
While Jenna was outside on her phone Phil did a quick inspection around the perimeter taking the warning of interior smoke seriously.
Seconds had passed when Phil bolted out the front door, "Smokes coming out of the back room call 911!"
Frantically fumbling with her cell phone, images of last winter flashed through her memory. The familiarity of Jenna dialing 9-1-1 because of a fire that Phil started put a knot in Jenna's stomach.
Three minutes and 3 fire trucks later the crowd around the house grew to numerous firemen and curious neighbors. If there was anyway to meet all your new neighbors at once this was the way to do it, and boy were they friendly and soooooooo funny... a blog post in itself.
Crap, the water on the stove! Jenna yelled at Phil to have the firemen go in the kitchen and turn off the lost pot of top ramen.
The firemen worked on the house for an hour. They couldn't just spray water down the chimney, it would only cause more damage and cracks so they had to genlty cool down the magma. After the smoke settled and the mud from their boots dried into our fresh cleaned carpets we got the word, we had more issues than the flu fire, the chimney is actually cracked in the attic and our house almost exploded! Again memories from last winter, "you house almost exploded," the knot in Jenna's stomach tightened. Good news the back bedroom smoke wasn't interior burning but smoke from the cracked chimney, pheww.
Starving, Jenna hadn't eaten since breakfast so she saught shelter at the Kelley Parent's while Phil continued to stand watch. Jenna of course immediately called Jenn to fill her in on the funny event, funny neighbors and not so funny memories of last winter. After hanging up with Jenn Nancy informed the starving girl that Phil needed her to go back to her house to make sure that the fire didn't start up again so Phil could make it to his weekly Timberhill b-ball game.... the knot that Jenna had been suppressing since 6:51pm was released. Waves of uncontrollable emotions poured out of her eyes and tightened her throat, "all I wanted was top ramen, Im so hungry!" Completely irrational all she could say was that she wanted top ramen. Nancy quickly responded hugging her offering her dinner only to make her cry and shake harder. A Nervous Breakdown.
Jenna half laughed and cried. "I never want to call 911 again!"


from my cell phone:



Day One:

• Wood Stove: deemed unsafe by the fire marshal. there is one big X on the "green sheet".