DH left at 2:30 this morning for a fire. He called at 6:24 (asshole) and said, "I'm on X street. The hoarder lady's house burned down. I should be home by 7."
In my stupor, I'm all "whose house?"
Anyway, he gets home and I asked what it was like. He said, "well, apparently the fire had been going on for a while before anyone noticed, because the roof had long since burned through, the back wall had collapsed, and the side walls were about to go. I didn't get to see inside too much, because we couldn't enter because of the whole wall-collapsing thing. But usually in cases like this, there's a small pile of ash. This pile was like eight feet high."
The house had been condemned a month or two ago (due to the hoarding). Supposedly she wasn't allowed back in until some things were cleared out. So they don't think she was inside. But they aren't sure. H said, "If she is in there, it will take them a looooong time to find her. There was a LOT of fire load in there."
When he left the fire to go to work, they were calling in a backhoe to expose more of the debris so they could get more water in the whole thing.
I do feel badly that the woman lost her house. I'm sure there were some things of actual value inside in addition to all of the crap. On the other hand, I wonder if this will be the thing that forces her to deal with her issues. (or will it send her over the edge as though someone had gone through and thrown everything away?)
I also asked H if this scared him into throwing some stuff away. He said no, that there were "orders of magnitude" difference between her and him. True, but it's a slippery slope from "packrat" to "hoarder." And he's definitely past "packrat."
