Elkridge Family Looks for Temporary Home After Fire

A week after a , the Graff family—including Sharon, Michael, their son Joshua and two young dogs—are looking for a place to go. 

“My family doesn’t need money or clothes. But we do need a place to live and are having a hard time finding it,” wrote Sharon Graff in an email to Patch. 

On Friday, Feb. 17, she was sleeping when her husband woke her to tell her there was a fire. "He sent me out and sent the dogs out behind me," she said.

Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services ruled the fire accidental, according to Jackie Cutler, spokeswoman for the department.

A crimped extension cord in the basement caused the electrical fire, according to Graff. She said a forensic engineer determined that the cord smoldered for 15 minutes before bursting into flames.

Firefighters from Howard and Baltimore counties responded to the blaze, which resulted in $40,000 worth of damage, according to Cutler.

Graff, standing in front of her boarded-up home on Feb. 27, said the family has been in a hotel for about 10 days.

Graff and her husband had lived in their blue house on Paradise Avenue for 39 years. They raised their two adult children there and cultivated a miniature orange tree that they bought on their honeymoon in Florida nearly 40 years ago.

"We had always said that when the orange tree dies, we have to get a divorce," said Graff. "The night of the fire...one of the firemen went in the house and brought out the orange tree; I think he felt badly for us." 

Graff said about half her house will have to be torn down and the family needs a rental for seven to nine months.

“We need three bedrooms—we could even get away with two and a finished basement, as long as there’s a fenced-in part of the yard," said Graff. "These dogs just love being outside…I think it would drive both of them crazy if they didn’t have a yard to be in.”

As Patch interviewed Graff, the dogs did laps around the property, investigating the premises, since they had been staying on the other side of the fence at a neighbor's house for more than a week.

"The dogs are welcome to stay as long as they want," said Graff of the neighbors' offer. "But I don’t want to intrude on them. They have a dog and a cat and a goat of their own."

The goat, Graff said, wasn't too fond of the dogs.

In the next house over, Patch also spied some chickens.

“This isn’t your run-of-the-mill Howard County neighborhood," Graff explained, and the family wants to stay, as a result.

“We are well settled in the community—that’s why we really want something local,” said Graff, who worked in circulation at the before going into business with her husband six years ago at , which is .3 mile from the house.

If you have information on a rental home in or around Elkridge with two to three bedrooms and a fenced-in yard, email sharonagraff@gmail.com.