ST. LOUIS — A south St. Louis family was forced out of their home after a fire at a vacant building spread to their home.
Wednesday evening, Katherine Keleher was finishing up a grocery run when she got a call no parent would ever want.
“He told me the house was on fire,” Keleher said. “I raced home from the Loughborough Schnucks. In my mind, it was just like what if my family is gone when I get there.”
Fortunately, Keleher’s family was safe thanks to the quick thinking of passerby drivers who saw the flames, which had spread into her daughter’s bedroom, and knocked on their door to alert them.
“If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t have anything in this world,” Keleher said. “They’re everything to me.”
The St. Louis Fire Department said it believed the fire started in the vacant home at 4702 S. Compton Avenue, which Keleher said has been a nuisance for years.
"I've called the cops on that house at least 30 times,” Keleher said. “It's been just nothing but squatters for the past two-and-a-half years that I've had to deal with.”
The cause of the fire is still under investigation at this time.
Keleher said she believed she knows what may have started the blaze.
“The homeless guy who set the fire here at this house, there's a back house on the property, he sat that on fire as well,” said Keleher. “That was two weeks ago.”
However, due to the lengthy process to evict squatters and the transient nature of the homeless, there’s often very little police can do under Missouri law.
“It’s frustrating. I understand that people are homeless and they’re having a hard time and their lives are difficult. Everyone’s life is difficult right now. Life is difficult for everybody," she said. "At the same time, it doesn’t give you the right to just destroy things and destroy other people’s lives along the way with it. My kids could have died. I could’ve been without my family.”
The Keleher family is staying in a hotel until they can figure out their future living arrangements.
If you would like to help the Keleher family click here.