The situation at the old house, the old house, and the new house:

My sister's dad went to jail for a year after getting a third DUI. He didn't leave us any money or information on how to deal with any of the numerous problems that frequently arose at the house. When we asked him if he was going to leave us money to pay the couple bills he always paid, he said no and that if we wanted those things, then we'd pay the bills.

Fast forward to winter, we'd been trying to save as much as we could so that when winter rolled around we'd be able to buy some fuel oil for the heater. Well, all of a sudden it's incrediby cold and we really need to use the heat. So, we turn it on. We know that there's still about half a tank of fuel so we can use it for a couple nights until the people can come fill it. Well, we turn it on, and then the house procedes to fill up with smoke. So, I go back into the basement and turn it back off, we air out the house as much as we can, considering it's freaking frigid out and now we're letting the colder air into the house.
So, we just deal. We'd wear more layers, warmer clothes, pile on the blankets when we go to sleep. But we were FREEZING. I mean, I was going to bed with at least two-three layers on and then an additional four-five blankets. When we were awake and doing stuff in the house we wore gloves. It was screwed up and it got to the point that we just couldn't keep dealing with it.

So, we started looking around and trying to find a house that wasn't totally out of the question, hoping we wouldn't have to resort to renting because of our pets. We decided to call this place about a house, the people were awesome, they gave us a broker suggestion and after about a month, we were signing papers and getting ready to move. Now, we're in the new house. We have heat. It's freaking amazing.