An apparent collision
I’ll open today’s post with a disclaimer. I am not a builder. I know nothing about the rules and the codes that apply to getting a house from the napkin in a coffee shop to a tight and tidy bungalow. I do have a few decades of bemused observation under my belt, though.
This afternoon, while paging through local social media, I noticed a photo of a house. Blue, with windows. A real house. Except that the form was skewed. Looked as though someone had tried to join two structures through a controlled collision. Or as if an older home had attempted to keep warm, in the lap of its neighbour. I had to find out more (since this is a local story).
The original post wanted to better understand who might have allowed this to happen. I mean, there are codes, right? The comments (so many comments) filled the curious in with the details (so many details).
This was a marriage of convenience. An older home, on a foundation of field stones, taking up residence with the newer build, on a proper foundation. A pity that nobody explained the requirements of maintaining a structure through long winters, with frequent thaws, and a heating system that may have missed the attention required… fuel oilm on demand.
The comments revealed that the owner had a history of buying, getting building supplies for his next project and then moving on (rather than in).
I’m not going to spend the evening trying to paint a picture here. This was a fail. Like a Red Green fail. I guess the duct tape also was in short supple. And I’m really glad that I didn’t come along when money and a dream might have tainted my sanity. I will warn my children to put time into a good title search (including biographies and anecdotes) should the desire to buy local enter their spirit.
