Long road for mother who lost everything

If you look between a rock and a hard place, you just might find Lynn Churcher.
The Greerton mother lost everything, and nearly her own elderly mother, when fire tore through her Kiteroa St home at the end of May. Six months on, she is still struggling to rebuild the house.
It was about 4.30pm when Ms Churcher went to the shops with her teenage daughters. She returned to find her home ablaze and an army of firefighters battling to put the fire out.
Her 73-year-old mother was inside until a heroic neighbour stormed in to pull her from the flames. Ms Churcher was aghast, and uninsured. Being a sickness beneficiary, she had no money to replace anything.
She said this was why the house, six months on, had not changed much.
A blackened ceiling sits atop charred walls and a coating of soot blankets what remains. The windows have been fitted with plastic to keep the water out and a fluorescent light hangs from framing, now that power has returned.
"A lot of the time I just had no desire to come up here. I couldn't come up and face it. I would come but then it was too overwhelming," she said.
Ms Churcher and her partner Shane McDowell stayed in a friend's garage after the fire but came back to the downstairs part of their home, which suffered minor smoke and water damage.
She said it was hard getting used to the people who drove slowly past looking, "like we were a zoo or something".
She said she was disappointed in her neighbours. "Apart from that lady who saved mum, no one in the street has come to say anything. It's not like I was expecting anything but if this was in my street and it wasn't my house, I would react a bit differently and show a bit of support."
Ms Churcher was initially worried for her mentally unwell mother, who she cared for.
She is now in a home "doing well" and Ms Churcher's children are living with family and friends.
Their scrawlings could be seen on smoke-damaged wall paper that has been partially ripped away. The clean walls underneath mark the beginning of change - a light at the end of the blackened tunnel, Ms Churcher reckons.
Donated timber lines the walls in what used to be the lounge, and as Ms Churcher talked with The Bay of Plenty Times, Mr McDowell whizzes by ripping out nails and clearing away debris.
He said it was a matter of being able to "take care of the little things", at least.
Ms Churcher said their motivation had picked up.
"Things are starting to happen, things we never thought would."
The timber, desperately needed to replace burned framing, was offered to Ms Churcher from Gary's Tyres when they shut up shop and needed to remove their shelving.
A friend of a friend offered glass for their empty windows.
Ms Churcher and Mr McDowell are grateful.
Any plans to rebuild their home were hampered by a significant lack of money, she said.
"We are working out some way to fund raise because we need a substantial amount.
"Nothing is forever. What this year has been like, next year will be different."