Smoke gets in your eyes...

... and your walls and your heating ducts.
Even when the fire is confined to one plastic storage tub in the basement.
We're headed this week to the home of a family in the Poconos who are now living in a motel after what seemed like a small fire earlier this month ruined their home.
Not much is burned. Much is ruined. An immense amount of smoke from the plastic tub and its contents got into the heating system. It also got into the walls, up every pipe and wire chase in the building. There's damaged insulation; the ducts for the hot air are coated in sticky stinking burned plastic. Clothing, furniture, carpets, walls, ceilings. An incredible mess.
The homeowner was dealing with his insurance company until they started acting like they were looking for a way out of their financial obligations to him.  Offering to just send his clothing for a wash and machine-cleaning his carpets as the solution to his problem struck him as not even close to adequate.  So a friend put him on to me, we got a Metro team there within four hours, he's now got us standing up for him.  More Thursday.