A nurse "lost everything" after her botox and beauty clinic was ravaged by fire - then robbed the next day.
Natalie Taylor, 42, lost the home of her business, Taylor Made Aesthetics, just one year after moving in when a fire broke out in a two-storey building at Aintree Industrial Park, Wareing Road, at around 5am on Monday, May 8.
Natalie, from Vauxhall, said: "I was in Wales at the time. It was all over the news. At first I didn't realise - then when I looked, I saw the fire engine was parked next to my sign."
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Natalie rushed home, but was not allowed to enter the burned-out building until 8pm.
She said: "At first it just looked like water damage. Then we saw what was the landlord's office, and that had been completely burned out. I knew, because my unit was right next to the office, my business would be affected. The whole room was reduced to nothing. It was smouldered.
"I went in and my clinic was completely destroyed. Everything, all my stock, was gone. You could hardly open the door to get in."
But further tragedy was yet to come, as the following day Natalie discovered vandals had entered the burned-out building overnight and caused even more damage.
She said: "They smashed my doors, they smashed my counters. So now my clinic is ten times worse. It's just a mess.
"After that, I tried to salvage whatever I could. For the next two days my family helped me. Whatever I could take, I took, because the building wasn't secured and I didn't want anything more ruined.
"I fell off a ladder trying to take the sign down and cracked my nose off the floor. I was pouring with blood everywhere."
To make matters worse, she later discovered her insurance had lapsed on her 10-year-old beauty business in February, meaning her losses will not be covered.
Her friend, Lorna Jump, has set up an online fund-raiser to help relocate the business to a new home.
Natalie said: "I haven't got a business any more. It has been burned to the ground. I've been robbed, the building's condemned. I've lost absolutely everything.
"I'm absolutely devastated. I do everything myself, I live alone, I've got no one to rely on. I can't stop crying. I just feel like everything I've worked hard for all these years has gone.
"The only thing I managed to salvage was a bed, my desk and a little couch in reception."
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