Well Teacake, we no longer have a back door as the house is demolished and gone now, and our new one doesn't have a back door but one on the side. I know - it's strange and I don't like it lol. But I do think something like that would help. Maybe if I had done it before the house was knocked down - it stood for 3 months with all our stuff inside. We stayed at my parents house for a month and a rental afterward, but I came back out here (we're back on the same spot out in the country) daily for 3 months to look for my 2 lost. The smell of smoke I encountered daily those 3 months along with what remained of our house and seeing things left as they were through the windows along with the damage from fire, firefighters tearing out our ceilings and making holes in the walls - for...?? For some reason I took all this damage personally, and it hurt a lot. It got to where I had to turn my head and try not to see what was there as I looked for my cats. But still - that smoke smell... Pages out in the yard blowing around from my books that burned up. I couldn't make myself go inside, though my husband and several other family members did several times. The descriptions I heard as if the place had been ransacked just hurt me more. Coffee table broken, couch flipped over and torn up (where my 8 dead cats were found), lid of my piano torn off and water sprayed inside, insulation and drywall on everything. I have books I saved I haven't cleaned off yet with small chunks of drywall stuck on them. I had my husband find my favorite shoes - my black Mary Janes - but I can't wear them because there is cat fur in the Velcro clasp and I don't want to lose it. I don't know what any of this has to do with freezing. I'm just rambling and remembering. But I do feel if I had allowed myself to be rude and had jerked away from my neighbor's grasp and gone back inside and done something - at least looked around quickly and maybe at least gotten one or two of them out to safety, I think I'd feel a little better. I'm sure I would've checked under the couch early on... But I don't know how I could've gotten terrified cats out. They might've been scared and bitten at me or who knows. I'm told I took exceptional care of my cats, but I always counter that with, "But I just took off and left them in harm's way. I didn't try to help them when they needed it most." The fact is there. I gave in and went with my neighbor, and I think I panicked right then because I knew I wasn't doing what I felt in my heart I should've done. What I would've done if he hadn't have been there.