A young care leaver who only recently got back on her feet after being forced into homelessness has been left devastated after a fire ripped through her flat and destroyed 'everything'.
Tia Henderson, who was Oldham's Youth Mayor from 2021 to 2022, has had a challenging couple of years.
At the age of 18, she left foster care and was happy to finally have a home to call her own with her furry family member, Tiny, a blue Staffy cross.
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However, just two years later, a rat problem drove her out of her home - and into a "cold" and "isolating" shipping container as her housing association, Great Places, could only offer emergency accommodation that wouldn't accept Tiny.
The rodent problem was so bad that a police officer conducted a welfare check on the property, concerned that there was a dead body in the flat.
Tia spent around eight months homeless until the authorities tackled the pests towards the end of 2022 and her home was safe to move back into.
Now, the 21-year-old, who will be turning 22 in just over three weeks' time, has suffered yet another devastating blow as a fire ripped through the Chadderton flat she spent so long re-building after the rats.
The blaze was caused by a candle which engulfed her living room in just five minutes.
The young woman said she had briefly gone into her bedroom when she heard the fire alarm going off and, at first, dismissed the noise assuming it was coming from a neighbouring flat.
When it got louder, Tia went into the living room and saw the ceiling was covered in black smoke.
She said: "My sofa was on fire. My curtain was on fire. The wall was on fire.
"I just stood there, processing it."
She then sprung into action, pushing one cat out of the window and "running" out of the house with just her socks on, her clothes on her back, her keys, her phone and the dog.
Tia said: "I dialled 999, it felt like forever getting through, then I realised my other cat was inside.
"I was in the street and could see black smoke billowing out of my living room and kitchen windows and I was screaming down the phone that my cat was in there.
"I was so upset, I was debating going back into the house but my neighbour stopped me and then we were shouting to neighbours to get out."
Firefighters tried their best to save Tia's cat, Treasure, with oxygen and CPR for around 20 minutes.
Tia continued: "I was watching through the window and they were telling me to get back but I just couldn't.
"I was crying, asking them if she was alive or not and a man just shook his head and I literally dropped to the floor, crying my eyes out.
"I couldn't be more grateful for how they tried - they tried as if she was a human and they wouldn't even speak to me, they were so concentrated on making sure they could do everything for her."
The animal lover who has volunteered in rescue shelters said she took in the grey and white cat when she was a "petrified" kitten, covered in fleas and conjunctivitis.
She described Treasure as "the most loving" and also a "Red Bull cat" because "she used to fly around the house".
Tia added: "Every night she would get into bed with me, the dog and my other cat and she had what my friends used to laugh about as a record-breaking purr, it was so loud."
Tia said her surviving cat, Taliah, is lost without her friend but she has managed to lay Treasure to rest with a memorial at a friend's house.
However, her once homely flat is now "completely black" from her walls to the furniture while her ceiling has crumbled away.
Her belongings, including her recently purchased birthday dress along with irreplaceable sentimental items like photographs she only has one copy of and the life storybook she got when she was adopted as a child, have all gone.
The only other items the fire service managed to recover from Tia's flat were dog and cat food.
Her current inventory of belongings includes her passport, which she had to "scrub and scrub" from the soot, her keys, phone, the cat, the dog, a dress and pyjamas that she's borrowed from her friends and a few bags of clothes that people have donated.
She continued: "It was a horrible situation but the fire service was really helpful - they tried to salvage some stuff but everything is covered in black smoke, it's horrific.
"I haven't processed it. I'm so overwhelmed.
"I've had so much moving around throughout my life and when I finally got my own place four years ago, I was happy, but there's been so much turmoil since I've been in that flat, through no fault of my own.
"There were stabbings just two weeks after I moved in, then there was the rat situation and I was homeless for eight months, it just seems like one thing after another.
"I had to start from scratch only a year ago, and I've literally just got back on track with everything and managed to get kitted out again and replace all the stuff and then all of a sudden, I'm back to square one only this time, I've got nothing.
"I've lost absolutely everything.
"I can't seem to catch a break - I was laughing with my neighbour the other day that it's like my flat is cursed.
"Losing the cat too has broken my heart because my little family that I've created, we're now split up. We're missing one."
Tia said she now fears her housing association, Great Places, won't be able to find her pet-friendly accommodation again and has been advised to rehome Tiny and Taliah.
She added: "I can't do that - I haven't got anyone else."
In the meantime, Tia has put her pets up in her friends' homes and is staying with some friends who have been "so helpful".
She said she's also thankful for her fire alarm for "saving my life" as she didn't see any smoke or smell fire until it had already engulfed the whole room.
Tia continued: "They say these things come in threes - I was homeless because of the rats, I recently lost my job as a therapeutic support worker and now this, where the only way is to rebuild everything from the ground up because there's not much else I can do.
"But I've done it once before, I can do it again.
"The only thing I'll never get over is obviously Treasure, I can build walls, I can put electrics back in, but you can't bring a cat back and that is something that I'll never get over."
Her friend has been rallying around to collect donations for Tia and has set up a GoFundMe to help her get back on her feet.
Tia added: "The whole community has come together so nicely for me too, it's usually me on the giving end of stuff but I'm looking at my car, and it's full to the brim of bags full of donations.
"I can't thank people enough, it's such a nice feeling and it made me realise that you know, we've got a really nice community here in Oldham."
Got a story? Email me Olivia.bridge@newsquest.co.uk
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