MESA, Ariz. — The death certificate, teddy bear, and baby shoes of Shaylene’s deceased 1-and-a-half-year-old son were among the things destroyed in a fire at a storage facility federal authorities are investigating.
“We lost everything,” said Shaylene. “It’s all completely gone.”
Shaylene, her husband, and two kids, including her 4-month-old baby girl, were forced out of their homes this summer when her husband lost his job.
“We moved into my grandmother’s house, and we only brought maybe a week's worth of clothes,” she said.
As they looked for a permanent home, the family put all of their belongings, a two-bedroom apartment worth of items, in a unit at the Public Storage near 8th Avenue and Country Club Road in Mesa.
Their things were safe until Saturday when a fire broke out on the facility’s roof around 7 a.m.
More than 80 fire officials from several communities responded to the scene, but “due to the large fire and poor access due to all the locked units and potentially collapse, the decision was made to go defensive,” Mesa Fire and Medical Department said.
Shaylene believes that caused her family and several others to lose all of their belongings. She and others getting confirmation emails from Public Storage that their units were a total loss, and their property was “unsalvageable.”
“I just wish it wouldn’t have happened, and I can say that for a lot of people, I bet,” Shaylene said. “We don’t care about the purses, the clothes, the shoes, we can try and get those back later on in life, but my grandpas’ boots who died from skin cancer, and my wedding stuff, I can’t get back.”
Among the things lost were also Shaylene’s four-month-old’s new baby crib, diapers, and clothes. The most devasting loss was her keepsakes from her one-and-a-half-year-old son, who passed away in 2020.
“All of these last pairs of shoes he had at the funeral, his death paperwork, his last teddy bear he had, it’s all gone,” she said.
Shaylene is now in the process of working out insurance claims that she expects “can take up to six months.” Her family hopes the community can rally behind them and help them get back on their feet.
They created a GoFundMe fundraiser, and anyone willing to donate baby items can call (480) 616-9807.
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