OCHO RIOS, St Ann — Seven-year-old Melique Bailey has had enough. He’s tired of sleeping in his father’s taxi and he wants life to return to the way it was before fire ravaged the house he shared with his parents and three-year-old brother Chevoy.

“Sometime mi son will just look sad and when mi ask if him alright him say, ‘Mommy, mi want mi house.’ That just hurt me to know that my son is uncomfortable and I am not in a position to help him,” his distraught mother, 24-year-old Shadeed Harvey, told the Jamaica Observer.

The family lost their Cave Valley, St Ann, house in a fire on August 26, the same day Tropical Storm Ida struck. That was their first night sleeping in a car that, during the days, Secrant Bailey uses to transport passengers so that he can provide for his family of four.

“It was a very bad experience because the night was cold and the sheet that we have was thin. Every time mi try sleep the breeze a blow hard outside and the rain fall hard,” said Harvey. “To make it worse it is a flood area, so we have to be on the lookout so that we didn’t wake up covered in water. All I could think about is that we could be in our house in our warm beds with blankets in the storm but we have to basically be outside.”

The Brown’s Town Fire department has confirmed that the family’s four-bedroom house was completely destroyed.

According to Harvey, she and her children had walked down the road to deliver food to their father on the job when a neighbour told her their house was on fire.

“When mi reach and push the door there was pure smoke and then mi just see fire start blaze up! Mi just start panic and don’t know what to do because mi couldn’t believe,” she said.

“Every one of the room did have in dresser, bed, and other stuff. Everything burn up; all mi two TV, fridge and whole heap of other stuff. Mi cry every night because mi just can’t believe that me and my children don’t have anywhere to live right now.”

Sometimes the children are lucky enough to spend the night at their paternal aunt’s house but a week after the fire they have slept in their father’s cab four out of the seven nights.

With online classes soon to resume as the new school year gets under way, Harvey is worried about the impact this will all have on Melique.

“Right now mi not even sure how mi son will go school because him tablet burn up and I don’t have anywhere to get one now. Not even shoes they don’t have on their feet. Thank God somebody give me some clothes; that is all they have to wear now,” she said.

The unemployed mother said she is desperately in need of help to rebuild a house. She already has a plot of family land.

“I’m on my face right now and is just the little my baby- father mek from driving taxi that is helping us,” she cried. “Mi work hard from mi a teenager and save to buy up my things and now everything gone.”

Anyone who wishes to help Harvey may contact her at (876) 909-6735.