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The family burned out of their Blueberry Court home are staying at a hotel until they find a place to rent.
 Press file photo.
A fire gutted the family's Blueberry Court house Feb. 20, likely
sparked when embers in the fireplace ignited a nearby futon.
But even if the fire hadn't destroyed what they had called
their dream home since 2004, the Dieps would still be temporarily homeless. The
family was given an eviction notice and was expected to be out the day of the
fire.
The couple saved for nearly a decade to put down about 20
percent of the cost of the home, which was in the mid-$400,000s, Phlong said. They moved
to Tracy in search of an affordable home larger than their condo in San Jose.
At the time, their third child was on the way.
"We knew Tracy was a nice place and we could get a
better home," said Phlong, 42.
Phlong, who is eight months
pregnant with her fourth child, said that she and her husband had no warning of
the foreclosure eviction. The couple set up their checking account to
automatically pay the mortgage each month, and the interest increased without their
knowledge, she said.
"I don't know how long we were not paying enough,"
she said. "We didn't have any idea we'd be evicted."
It wasn't until about seven hours after the family's home
burned that Phlong spotted the eviction notice
taped to the front door. She said the family always
entered the house through the garage door, so she didn't know how long the
notice had been there.
Most eviction notices are posted eight days in advance,
according to the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department.
The evening before the fire,
Phlong said, she lit the fireplace and fell asleep on a nearby futon alongside
her 3-year-old son, Dairan.
Early in the morning, Phlong got
up to take the garbage out, and when she went back inside, she smelled smoke
coming from the futon mattress, which was starting to smolder. When it burst
into flames, she grabbed her three kids and
the children’s grandmother and got everyone out of the house.
 The family is staying at a hotel until they find a house to rent. Glenn Moore/Tracy Press
Diep, who works as a Mercedes and BMW mechanic in the Bay
Area, had left two days earlier for recertification training in Southern
California. He found out about both the eviction and
the fire when he returned home Feb. 21. Diep was unavailable for
comment.
The devastation of the couple's losses mounted this week
when Phlong learned that homeowner’s
insurance will not replace anything, because the house was the property of
Wachovia Bank at the time of the fire.
"We have nothing," she said. "The bank won't
even let me go see what's left in the house."
People have collected clothes and toys for the kids,
bedding, blankets and books, a television and other household items, with
promises of furniture and more donations this weekend, said a neighbor, Shelly
Keith.
Phlong set up her laptop computer on
a desk in her room at Fairfield Inn this week to scroll through pages of
rentals on the Internet.
"I hope we'll be out of here by next week," she
said.
At a glance:
• For information about where to drop off donations:
Shelly Keith, 221-0562, or Mischelle Fieisch, 740-9169.
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