apartment fire
This is my first post on here, so take it easy :)
On February 4th 2026, we had an apartment fire. I was just chilling in my room when I saw black smoke coming from my window out to the balcony of our apartment, I go to check it out and the things we had on our balcony are ablaze. Luckily the fire itself didn’t get inside the unit too much but it really didn’t matter. I was in a rush to call 911 and get downstairs that I stupidly left the balcony door open, which allowed all the smoke to enter the unit. On top of that, the firefighters had to break the windows of my room and the room next to mine to fight the fire from inside. Long story short, the apartment was completely ruined. Everything was soaked, there was like 2 inches of water on the floor, the walls and everything single thing we owned was covered in soot and ash, we lost so much stuff (we have insurance so thank god for that at least). We made a fire report the same night and it came back saying that the cause of the fire was unexplained and unintentional. (If i were to guess somebody flicked their burning cigarette bud over their balcony and it landed on ours, It happened before in our building). Ever since that day my family and I have been all across the city seeking temporary housing in hotels, air bnb’s, and family members apartments. We ( my mom, little brother and I) are now currently staying at my older brother’s studio apartment. I know we are in a crisis but 4 people living in a small studio apartment is extremely uncomfortable and i’m starting to get very exhausted.
I wouldn’t be making this post if we had good communication from our apartment’s mangers and were getting updates but what I saw last week really pushed me to my limit. For the entire month of February, my family and I were clearing out the apartment. My mom rented 2 storage units to hold what was salvageable from the fire. The apartment was completely empty and ready for renovation in March. After months and months of contacting them and asking for updates, my mom finally gets an email last month in July saying that renovations have started. We were so happy at first and finally felt like this nightmare was ending, but last week when I swung by the apartment to get our mail I decided to go upstairs and take a look. ( I know that this was wrong but I was just so desperate to see the progress). What I saw completely broke me. The apartment unit was completely gutted and is a shell of what it used to be. They haven’t done dry walling, or anything really. (see pics below to see what i’m talking about). My heart literally dropped. I don’t know much about construction but what I do know from the men in my family who do, the apartment should’ve been done already. And it looks like they just started. Barely any work has been done in 6 fucking months. And the cherry on top is that my mom is still paying rent for the apartment, has been every month since the fire. For added context, my family and I are old tenants. We’ve been there for over 16 years now, and still pay a little over $1700 for a 3 bedroom. New tenants are paying upwards of $3500 for the same. I’ve always had the thought that they could and want to renovate our apartment unit and bring in new tenants to pay more for it. I’ve told my mom to contact the tenant’s board or just anybody higher up to talk to them about our situation but she is so exhausted of this ordeal that she doesn’t have the energy anymore. I feel like we’re at our witt’s end. There’s still 2 months of work (at the very least) left before we move back in, if we even do. I’m writing this so you guys could give me some advice or anything on what to do. I feel like my back is up against a wall.