Space heater destroys mobile home

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BERKELEY SPRINGS — A Berkeley Springs couple lost everything they owned last week when a fire destroyed their mobile home.

Wayne and Pam Shanholtz — who are each disabled and unemployed — are in need of everything from clothes to a place to call home.

“I just want them to be taken care of,” said Angel S. Bearup, the couple’s niece.

“They lost everything that they had,” she said of her 60-year-old uncle and 52-year-old aunt.

Bearup lost her mother, Janet Bearup, earlier this year.

“We have had nothing but bad luck the whole year,” she said.

The couple were not at home when the fire ripped through their home at Dick’s Mobile Home Park off Whisner Avenue near downtown Berkeley Springs on Nov.6.

The cause of the fire was determined to be electrical in nature, Bearup said.

According to Bearup, her aunt and uncle have been facing difficult financial times and had no heat, so a space heater was plugged in to warm the two-bedroom, one-bath mobile home.

Four dogs, one cat and two birds in the mobile home were also displaced by the fire. They have been temporarily farmed out to family relatives.

Bearup said her aunt and uncle consider the pets “their children” and are distraught that they are unable to be with them.

The Red Cross put the couple up for three days in the Best Western in Berkeley Springs, but they had to leave. They are now with a friend allowing them to stay in a room above his business in Berkeley Springs.

The Shanholtz’s are in need of everything from clothes to money for medications.

“He can’t use his hands,” Bearup said of her uncle, so Wayne Shanholtz is seeking western shirts that snap.

Clothes, shoes and household items are at the top of the couple’s needs list.

Bearup said the Berkeley Springs Volunteer Fire Department, Hancock Volunteer Fire Department, Morgan County Rescue Squad Inc. and the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department responded to the fire last Monday afternoon.

On Friday, volunteers from a Berkeley Springs church helped clear debris from the destroyed mobile home.

“What the fire didn’t get, the smoke and heat did,” Bearup said.

The owner of O’Bros Pizza in Berkeley Springs supplied a lunch Friday afternoon to volunteers clearing the site.

The mobile home was not insured.

“Any and all help is appreciated for them,” Bearup said.

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Another great application for a power strip with smoke detecting automatic shutoff. Space heaters have a tipover shutoff, but not a smoke detector shutoff. They'd be a lot safer if they were plugged into one of my power strips.