Outpouring of Gifts for Family’s Deed Includes a Home : Reward: Homeless couple and their son now have a residence and cascade of money and good wishes after returning lost wallet with nearly $2,400 cash to Buena Park police.

For Tom and Pauline Nichter, there is no better feeling than having a place to call home.

Homeless since October, the couple and their 11-year-old son, Jason, spent their first night Wednesday in their new Garden Grove apartment. The owner of the complex gave the one-bedroom apartment to them rent-free for six months, a reward for their good deed.

The family turned in a wallet with nearly $2,400 in cash to Buena Park police on Feb. 25 after they found it in a Buena Park Mall toy store.

The owner of the wallet, a tourist, didn’t offer a reward, only a “thank you.” But since their story was publicized, letters, money and even job offers have poured into the family from across the country.

As a result, the family, who in the past four months had lived in motels and out of their car, now has a place to live, money to buy food and pay bills, and the possibility of getting work. It is, they said, a second chance in life.

Tom Nichter, 44, said they don’t know how much money has been donated to them. But police estimate it in the thousands.

“We’re just grateful for what we’ve got now,” he said.

The Nichters also have been bombarded by the media and have given countless interviews to newspapers, television news programs, magazines and radio talk shows across the country and abroad. They were interviewed by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller at last Sunday’s church services at the Crystal Cathedral, appeared on the “Today” and “Home” shows, and may even do a stint on the Maury Povich show.

“The media has been running them crazy,” said Buena Park Police Sgt. Terry Branum, who as the department’s spokeman also has acted as the family’s press secretary of sorts and has been called on as well to give media interviews.

“They’ve certainly been duly rewarded for turning the money in.”

Branum said the Police Department has been flooded with phone calls and has received between 8,000 and 10,000 pieces of mail for the Nichters.

“Three hundred to 400 letters came in today,” Branum said Wednesday. “We’re still getting a lot of response. It reminds us that there are a lot of good people out there. It’s kind of refreshing from our standpoint.”

Branum said the Nichters asked him when their lives would get back to normal.

“I said, ‘In about a week.’ ” But then a producer contacted him about the possibility of a television movie.

“So I don’t know when it’s going to end,” Branum said.

Tom Nichter said he and Pauline, 46, are overwhelmed by the generosity.

But as they moved into their new home Wednesday, all they could think of was getting settled in.

“We don’t even have pillows for the bed. We have to go buy them,” Tom Nichter said, apologizing for not having the time to do yet another interview Wednesday. “There are boxes all over the place and no sheets on the bed. . . . We have so much work to do.”

Buena Park Police Explorers helped the family move their belongings from the home of Pauline Nichter’s parents, where they have been staying the past few weeks since her unemployment checks ran out a few weeks ago.

She was laid off from her job as a warehouse supervisor in Buena Park company a year ago. Tom Nichter, who also has worked in warehouses, hasn’t had a steady job in a year.

Pauline’s mother, Rebecca Castillo, said: “They’re going to be happy to be in their own place. I’m glad things worked out for them. To me, I think it’s a miracle.”

And Tom Nichter said he was looking forward Wednesday to “getting a good night’s sleep.”