Mixed emotions as Wheatley residents return home

By Mark Ribble

WHEATLEY —While workers were busy disassembling the fencing that has kept the streets closed down, many Wheatley residents spent Wednesday, April 13 entering their homes and assessing the damage stemming from last August’s explosion.

Those residents who returned to their homes were greeted with varying degrees of damage and dishevelment.

For Reija and Joe Gruber, the damage to their home was minimal at first glance.

Joe and Reija Gruber outside their Wheatley home.

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“Surprisingly it’s not bad,” said Reija. “We knew from previous visits that it would better than expected.”

Her husband Joe was all smiles as the couple turned the key to the home purchased just three weeks before the explosion last August.

A few things have come off the walls but overall, their house is in pretty good shape.

“Now we can finally think about all of those things we wanted to do when we moved in,” said Reija.

“It’s good to be home,” added a smiling Joe, who had a hard time hiding his excitement, acknowledging that they aren’t allowed to live there until all proper inspections and approvals are done.

“We’re hoping for the end of the month,” said Reija, who said that other than losing their fridge and freezer, most everything else inside the house is fine.

Directly across the street from the Grubers, Bugsy and Becky Lamb are not as fortunate.

They had been inside their home in December and saw the moldy outcome of having a basement full of sewer water.

On Wednesday, their situation hadn’t changed.

A sanitation company was there Wednesday morning and pumped 8,400 gallons of sewage out of their basement.

Becky and Bugsy Lamb at their front door.

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“It was awful,” said Becky. “Our home is ruined.”

Bugsy remembers cooking some chicken for dinner on August 26, 2021 when suddenly the blast blew out two windows in the back of the house and another out front.

“That was the start of our nightmare,” he said.

Becky was just arriving in town from work in Leamington and saw the blast from her car. She pulled in the driveway and yelled for her husband, who hadn’t seen the debris in the air.

“I thought a truck had hit a tree or something,” said Bugsy.

The next few months would be the most frustrating months of their lives together as they moved from temporary home to temporary home — four in all.

“We were fortunate to be able to find places to live, but meanwhile none of our furnishings are salvageable,” said Becky.

In fact they don’t even know if their home is salvageable at this point.

“The restoration people say they can perform miracles,” said Becky. “We’ll see what they say.”

Thankfully, the Lamb’s insurance company has been on top of things, so they are hoping for the best possible outcome.

Meanwhile, they can sit in their garage and spend time in the yard as spring gardening season approaches.

From the outside, you would never know there was anything wrong. But all you have to do is open the front door and get hit with the strongest wave of mildew smell you’ve ever experienced to know what the Lambs are dealing with.

Anyone entering the house has to don a hazmat suit and respirator.

The mold covers almost every square inch of everything in the house including the walls, floors and ceilings. The basement is a total loss.

“But, we’re home,” said Becky Lamb. “After eight months of being displaced, we can finally say we’re home.”

Reija Gruber and Becky Lamb met in the middle of the street on Wednesday, sharing a hug, but also sharing a bond far greater than a regular neighbourhood friendship.

They’ve got something in common for the rest of their lives, and that something is resilience.