Three days after a fire tore through their home, a Windsor family is still not allowed to return to collect their belongings.

They've been told the home may have to be completely demolished.

Helen Wolfe wants to collect her stuff from the house that's still standing. It's something the city's building department won't allow.

"My heart's breaking,” says Wolfe. “I'm looking at a piece of my life, gone."

Her Howard Avenue home up went in flames on Monday. Her mother and two dogs were rescued. She believes her cat is still alive and inside.

The rest of her possessions, including some native artifacts are shut indoors.

"We're Native American, we have several items in the house that are sacred to our culture," says Wolfe.

She can't get to them because the city's building department says the damage is too severe and the house is structurally unsafe.

"We determined the building was unsafe, and we shouldn't allow any more entry into the building," says Rob Vani, Windsor’s manager of inspections.

Two orders have been placed on the home, both denying any access inside for safety reasons.

Wolfe claims the day after the fire, the city issued a repair or demolish order, giving her two weeks to choose an option.

"I'm stuck in a corner between a rock and a hard place with the government, and they're refusing to move," says Wolfe.

But Vani says it's a standard process that's being misinterpreted.

"The two weeks she's referring to is an appeal period, that she has to appeal the order," says Vani.

After that, Wolfe can hire a structural engineer who can assess the structure.

"Make recommendations on what part of the building need to be shored up in order for the building to be safely accessed to retrieve whatever items she needs to retrieve from that building," says Vani.

Wolfe didn’t have homeowners insurance, so she would have to pay roughly $1,500 for an engineer. Vani says the damage may be too much for it to be worth her while.

"Typically a building that's sustained that type of damage usually it's not an economically feasible, viable undertaking to repair the building," says Vani.

Wolfe says she just wants more time to make the right decision.

"I don't want to rebuild a house that's not safe, but I don't want to tear down a piece of our history, either," says Wolfe.

The city did already arrange to have some artifacts safely removed from the home the night of the fire.

Wolfe said she was going to court Friday to file an injunction against the city.

The building department says its willing to work with her to extend the deadline to get an engineer's report.