And now, a big dose of perspective

I went down to Denver yesterday to get some computer training at the official Apple store down there, and worked in a visit with my friend J, who I went to high school with. Good gravy, it was nuts at the mall where the store is. I was unprepared for the thick traffic and rude people who don't pull to the side to wait for someone to clear a spot, they just block the way while they wait. It happened twice there, once with a Range Rover and once with a Lexus SUV. Rude drivers make me crazy. Just sayin'.

There's another one of us from high school who lives in Denver, A, and A and J married brothers. I don't see A as much, but she's still an old friend. They both live in neighborhoods with old two-story houses on small lots. Over lunch, J told me the eye-popping story about how some folks bought the house next door to A with the intention of fixing it up. It's on a corner, so A and her family are the only neighbors. Before they started, the neighbors came over and told A and her husband about the work they had planned, and A took pictures of the 10' space between the houses, just in case, for insurance purposes.

I'm not sure of the exact sequence of events, but it involved the far side of the neighbor's house FALLING OFF after a hole was dug to do foundation work. Something like 9 tons of concrete were pumped into/around the foundation, to no avail. The front porch also fell off. Somewhere around this time, A's house was deemed too dangerous to occupy, although it has so far not been damaged. She and her family were ordered, on short notice, to leave their home until the house next door was torn down. This was three weeks ago.

It's been determined that the contractor is at fault, and they're, um, having trouble getting in contact with him. The city's building inspector said that he sees about 10 instances of this per year. Something goes wrong, and when they try to shore up the foundation, the place falls apart.

It's going to take $60K to knock the house down, and until then, it looks like A's family can't live in their house. They've retained a lawyer. Can you even imagine? "Please tear down this house, I can't live in mine until you do." "Sorry, we don't have the money. We're trying to get it from the contractor." I hope it gets resolved very soon.