(TAUNTON, Mass.) -- A woman in Massachusetts escaped her home moments before it exploded and burst into flames Sunday, police said. 
 
 Police identified 52-year-old Laurie Beliveau, of Taunton, as the sole resident of the two-story, single-family home. 
 
 Beliveau was attempting to repair her gas-fueled hot water heater and removed the gas shut-off valve, State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan and Taunton Fire Chief Timothy J. Bradshaw said in a statement Monday. This misstep caused gas to pour into the basement where it was ignited by an unknown ignition source. 
 
 Several unnamed bystanders called the Taunton Fire Department at about 3:53 p.m. One woman reported she "felt the ground shake" while another saw smoke billowing from the rooftop, according to recordings of the 911 calls obtained by ABC News. 
 
 Beliveau's neighbor Paul Saltalamacchia said Beliveau ran two doors down to his home screaming for help. 
 
 "We, my son and I, got her a pair of sandals and a glass of water and within about five minutes the house was in flames and the windows exploded," Saltalamacchia told ABC News Monday. 
 
 Saltalamacchia said Beliveau told him she was upstairs in her bedroom when the closet doors blew off and that she had "done something to the furnace" before the explosion. 
 
 "She was hysterically talking to the fire department about a gas fire place," Saltalamacchia said, noting that she also lamented that her pet cockatoo was still inside. 
 
 Lt. Kevin C. Farrar, communications officer for the Taunton Fire Department, said the "homeowner may have attempted her own repair on the [natural gas] water heater." 
 
 Farrar said the incident was a graphic reminder to homeowners not to attempt repairs unless by a qualified person. 
 
 Saltalamacchia said Beliveau is divorced with two adult children. He said another neighbor called Beliveau's ex-husband but did not hear back from him. 
 
 There is an ongoing investigation, but Taunton Deputy Fire Chief Scott Dexter said the department suspects a gas leak caused the blast that leveled the home. 
 
 "Everything caved in. It's just a pile of lumber. Nothing is salvageable," Dexter told ABC News. 
 
 Investigators from the fire marshal's office, state police department, Office of Public Utilities and the Columbia Gas of Massachusetts were at the scene this morning, Dexter said. 
 
 Don DiNunno, communications and community relations manager for Columbia Gas, said an explosion of this magnitude in a suburban neighborhood is rare. 
 
 "It does happen but thankfully very, very infrequently. But one's more than enough. Thankfully, the lone occupant was able to get out," he told ABC News. 
 
 DiNunno said all the utilities at Beliveau's house have been turned off. Columbia Gas advises residents to leave their homes immediately and avoid operating any utilities in the event of a leak. 
 
 The Northern Bristol County Registry of Deeds has an affidavit filed in August regarding a foreclosure of Beliveau's home, the Taunton Gazette reported. 
 
 Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. ||||| An investigator and a K-9 unit dog were outside a home on Tuesday on Craig Street in Milton where an explosive device had been found and disarmed by police. 
 
 MILTON — The Boston police bomb squad removed and disarmed an explosive device found in a home in Milton on Tuesday, authorities said. 
 
 Milton police called the Boston department for assistance at about 3:45 p.m. after the device was discovered in the house on Craig Street, according to David Estrada, a spokesman for Boston police. 
 
 Continue reading below 
 
 When officers arrived, an electrician and the homeowner’s attorney were at the house, said Milton Police Chief Richard Wells. The electrician was there, following a failed home inspection the week before, when he discovered what he told police was “an IED” — improvised explosive device — in the form of a plastic jug full of accelerant and wired to explode when a light switch was flipped, Wells said. 
 
 “We knew just by looking at it that this was something else,” Wells said Tuesday night. 
 
 Officials removed several brown paper bags from the house at 4 Craig St. throughout the afternoon and evening. The device, which was wired throughout the house, was removed and disarmed by the bomb unit, Wells said. 
 
 Lindel Williams, who owns the property, left the house just after 8 p.m. 
 
 He said the most recent residents of the home — a husband, wife, and daughter — had moved out last weekend, after living there since June. 
 
 The explosive was placed in a closet off the side of the bedroom, plastered behind a wall. 
 
 Someone had also poured concrete into the plumbing, Williams said. 
 
 He said he was very afraid when he saw the rigged system. “I just can’t believe someone would really do this,” he said. 
 
 Wells said investigators are looking at several people of interest, focusing on those who have had access to the house. 
 
 Veronica Guerrero-Macia, 51, said she lives two doors down from the property. 
 
 Craig Street was blocked off with police cars and yellow tape while officers went door-to-door on Tuesday afternoon, telling residents that there seemed to be “a suspicious package near the ceiling on the first floor” of the residence, but that they would not be evacuating the area, Guerrero-Macia said. 
 
 Rose Martin, 32, said the property was commonly rented out. Martin and her family have lived across the street from the house for 13 years. She said they did not know the recent renters, but regularly saw two cars in the driveway. 
 
 “It’s insane,” she said. “It’s exciting but insane. Scary.” 
 
 The house had historically been “a target house,” Martin said, and it was vandalized with red paint in between renters. 
 
 K-9 units continued searching the house into the evening, and a single police vehicle remained out front while investigators worked in the dwelling. 
 
 Donna Elliot, 32, said she had arrived at her home on Craig Street at about 5:30 p.m. 
 
 “I saw police, and dogs going in and out of the house,” she said. 
 
 By just past 6 p.m., the street was reopened, and cars drove by slowly as passengers peered at the white house. The door stood agape, red splotches marked the roof, and officials moved in and out. 
 
 After the device was removed, neighborhood children wandered around, speaking with an officer out front and chattering among themselves. 
 
 Pam Cherry, 41, has lived on Craig Street for 11 years. She returned home and her husband told her that there had been a suspicious package found in a home on the corner. 
 
 “The people that lived there weren’t neighbors that anyone knew,” Cherry said. “I never saw them.” She said she had never experienced such an event in her area, “but I suppose it could happen in any neighborhood.”
– A Massachusetts woman apparently botched some home repairs yesterday and blew her house to smithereens, WBT reports. Lucky for Laurie Beliveau, 52, she fled her property in Taunton, Mass., minutes before the explosion. "We, my son and I, got her a pair of sandals and a glass of water and within about five minutes the house was in flames and the windows exploded," says Paul Saltalamacchia, a neighbor who saw her crying for help. Seems that Beliveau was trying to fix her hot water heater—which was gas-fueled—when she took off the gas shut-off valve, according to fire officials. That allowed gas to leak into the basement and somehow get ignited. "Everything caved in," says Taunton Deputy Fire Chief Scott Dexter. "It's just a pile of lumber. Nothing is salvageable." According to Saltalmacchia and police, Beliveau was at home in her bedroom when an initial explosion rocked the house and blew off her closet door, the Taunton Gazette reports. "She was walking up the street screaming 'Help me, help me! My house exploded!'" Saltalmacchia says. Another neighbor says Beliveau was once married but lived alone for years, barely communicating with others and living in apparently unsanitary conditions with dogs and cats. A "rotting-vegetable-type odor" could be smelled out back even after the explosion, the Gazette reports. "She should not have been here by herself," says the neighbor. "It doesn’t make sense."