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On Monday, as Essex OPP officers took statements from the home’s owners, a work crew with Paul Davis Restoration Inc. was busy ripping out destroyed flooring and emptying the home of its soaking contents. The backyard was filling up with junked furniture, mattresses and other items, while inside, where there was a terrible reek, sodden bits of collapsed ceiling were piled on the floor, and downstairs the flooring was buckled and the streaked walls showed signs of water damage.

This is not our house anymore

The family is staying in a hotel in Windsor, but Salidas said her three children – ages five, 11 and 16 – insisted Monday on returning to school. The children haven’t been allowed to view the home, but she said her daughter, in particular, has been traumatized by the event.

“The kids are really scared,” she said.

Salidas runs a home-based business as a successful member of the global direct sales firm Scentsy, which markets a wickless candle system considered a safe alternative to the regular burning variety. The Disney family adventure was her seventh such free trip, earned through a combination of sales and growing her Scentsy “team.”

It was on the final night of the trip, the family digging into their salads ahead of a large banquet dinner, when a family member, tasked with taking care of the cat back home, called to alert them that the house was flooded. With neighbouring homes on Gosfield Townline East nearby, Salidas estimates the upstairs drains were plugged and the taps left running since the previous night.

“We were told the downstairs was like a pool,” she said, adding the cat was also gone. Children’s toys left behind were wantonly smashed.

“The kids said the only thing they cared about was the cat,” said Salidas, adding the feline returned after the family put its familiar litter box outside the front door.

Adjusters were on their way to the home Monday, and Salidas said insurance should cover the cost of what was damaged or stolen. But, describing the guilty party as “heartless,” she said the family won’t ever be returning.

“This is not our house anymore,” she said.