"Oh Lawd Jesus It's a Farr"
Yesterday one of my dad's apartments in Silverlake caught on fire. Apparently the tenant accidentally left a lit cigarette somewhere in his room and *poof* the place went up in a freaking blaze. I found out about it on my way to work, and spent pretty much all of my evening getting information via twitter and @LAFDTalk. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness, and my dad has epic fire insurance.
I went over today to survey the damage and photograph the place. It's pretty tore up in there and the smell hangs on to your clothing for hours after. It was haunting to see how the fire ate away at the place.
The insurance is projecting about a 4-6 month wait until the place is rentable again. They'll be taking care of everything, as I understand it, including completely remodeling the inside, replacing the furnace, replacing the stove and fridge, repainting, new flooring, etc. The place is going to look beautiful once they're done. When one of the other apartments on a different lot caught fire a few years back, the insurance did a fantastic job fixing the place up. It's quite impressive.
Technically because it was the tenant's fault that the fire erupted, this terminates his contract. When I learned this I began weighing the pros and cons of possibly moving in here instead of the other house .
Pros of the fire apt:
-It'll be completely refurbished and up to code.
-Insurance is replacing the fridge (we don't have one for the other house.)
-Off street parking
-Better neighborhood
-Bigger yard in front, side, and back.
-Sooner probability of actually moving in.
-Right next door to my grandma's apt (though she's planning on moving out.)
Cons of the fire apt:
-It's a little bit smaller.
-The neighbor is neurotic.
-Right next door to my grandma...
I was considering all of this, but had decided to stay and work toward the other house, until I saw the actual size of the inside of the fire apt. It's a lot bigger than I remember, though still a teensy bit smaller than the house. Still I fell in love with it. I lived in that apartment, when I was really young, with my moms for a short while. I vaguely remembered it until I got to look around.
After talking it over with my dad, and balancing some other ideas we had for this apartment and future tenants, my dad agreed that this was the best idea. We're still going to work on the other house, just to get it rented. A house in Edendale could be rented for quite a bit, which might actually be more beneficial for us in the long run. So as it stands, I'll be moving into the fire apartment with Eric in 4-6 months!
A toast for growing up finally!
oh and Happy Independence Day (kind of ironic huh?)