Foale family left homeless after fire hit twice by cruel thieves

The Foale family were lucky to escape with their lives after fire ripped through their home last month. They have been dealt another hammer blow.

Evelyn Turner 12 with mum Veronica Foale. The family became homeless after a house fire at the family home at Melton Mowbray around a month ago and have now had their car stolen along with the temporary accommodation they are staying in broken into with some possessions stolen. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

A family who escaped a fire with just the clothes they were wearing have been dealt another cruel blow with thieves stealing cash and gift cards before returning a night later to steal their car.

Veronica Foale believes the thieves forced the lock on a sliding door at the Austins Ferry AirBnB early on Wednesday stealing her handbag containing $200 cash and gift cards worth $170 and $250 donated by her children’s school for groceries.

“I only realised my bag had been stolen when I got an alert that my debit card had been used at 5am at Howrah,” she said.

“Our car keys were burned in the fire so we paid $800 to get new keys cut and the spare was in the handbag so the next night they came back and stole the car.”

Ms Foale was contacted by police on Saturday morning to tell her the car had been found at Glenorchy.

Veronica Foale's family home was burnt down Picture supplied

It has been a nightmare for Ms Foale, her husband and three children aged 18, 15 and 12, who all have disabilities including a connective tissue disorder, since a faulty power board started a fire which destroyed their Melton Mowbray home last month.

As well as the two robberies, the family had looters trawling through the remains, their beloved 16-year-old dog Maisy had to be put to sleep because she couldn’t cope after the fire.

Veronica Foale's beloved dog Maisie was not the same after fire destroyed the family's Melton Mowbray home. Picture: Supplied.

“It has just been horrendous and exhausting,” she said.

“We lost one of our cats in the fire too, so we found his body in the wreckage.

“He was three, and he was one of our scaredy cats that we’d taken in after he was found in a bin when he was a baby.

“Maisy was old, so the moment she was taken away from familiar surroundings, she just went to pieces and couldn’t cope.

“So her final few days were awful because she kept going back to try and hide.”

The Foales have returned each day to feed their chickens and other rescue cats and said it was hard knowing people had been sifting through the rubble.

“That was really confronting, it was the strangest feeling to know that the moment we left the rubble, people were in looking through it – how weird is that?

“Some of the unbroken plates had then been deliberately smashed on concrete.

“We think that there were people looking for unburned things, but the fire was so hot and so horrendous that really there was nothing left.”

Veronica Foale's family home was burnt down Picture supplied

The two younger children, who are in years six and nine, are struggling.

“The hardest thing for them is the loss of their routine and stability, and realizing that you can lose absolutely everything all at once and nothing will ever be the same again.

“To have all that safety and stability and everything just ripped out from underneath you and then to be sort of feeling safe and a little bit stable in the Airbnb, and then to have the Airbnb broken into with people actually entering it, and then the car stolen is too much.

“I just picked up a brand new barbecue because we’re moving home next week and I need something to cook on and that was in the car when they stole it.”

Veronica Foale's family home was burnt down Picture supplied

The Foales also had to pay to replace their spectacles and are hopeful they will be reimbursed by the insurance company.

“They’re doing the best they can, but they were struggling to sort the logistics down here, because they’re in Queensland.

“And obviously it’s nearly Christmas, all the building companies, everyone is very backed up, so things are just horrendously slow.”

The family hope to return home next week and live in tents with a portable toilet and battery-operated shower using a bucket of water.

“The kids are absolutely not looking forward to it, but they are also desperate to be home and have their cats back.”

Ms Foale is grateful for a GoFundMe set up “that’s allowed us to keep functioning”.

“The insurance is so slow and we needed to replace the kids’ clothes and make sure that we’ve all got hats for summer, although the hats were in the car that was stolen, so I’ve got to replace those again.”

Originally published as Foale family left homeless after fire hit twice by cruel thieves