So I was watching the news the other day and NBC reported that a rowhouse collapsed in DC when they were digging beneath the foundation to underpin it. That's one of the reasons I was so pissed off that the Sudanese guy was hiring people from a parking lot in Home Depot (the corporate Satan) to do the same thing at his place.
- Underpinning is dangeous if you don't know what you're doing: FACT!
- People who look for work in Home Depot parking lots are usually not experts in structural engineering: PROBABLY A FACT!
- He's got a meelyun Sudanese people living in his house and if they die in a horrible building collapse near my property it probably won't be good for the value of my home: SUPPOSITION!
In other news, a house that is RIGHT by the ninja fortress partially collapsed the other day too. From the looks of it, it looks like a bad underpinning job too.
$20,000 Fine? Yikes!
Here is what it looks like from the side. As you can see, it's sorta' missing an entire wall. Now, I'm not an architect or anything, but I think having a house with only 3 walls is probably not a good idea. That's like buying a car with no steering wheel or taking abvice about mental health from Angelina Jolie.
This is stop work order. Seeing one, even on someone else's place gives me the heeby jeebies. Partly because it involves fines and bureaucrats but mostly because it involves telling you to stop doing work. Telling a latino to stop working is like telling an Arlington Parking Nazi to stop being an asshole. It can probably be done with some intensive training sessions, but why change human nature?Update: They got some engineers in and did some bracing and they put the bricks back up now. I'll take a picture of it when I have some time. Also, I'm in the process of setting up a spinoff site for my ninja stock picks, but I may post the first installment here in a day or two. Stay tuned.
6 comments:
Having lived with a realtor for several years, I can assure you that the 3 wall house can be moved if it is advertised as having "TONS of light," and that as long as the dead bodies aren't in your house, they add value by increasing the "historical interest" of the neighborhood.
The collapsed row house is in my neighborhood, on A St. SE between 8th and 9th. The day it happened, there were at least 15 emergency vehicles in the intersection of 8th and A; the entire block was roped off with caution-caution tape. I asked one of the policemen why. He said other houses could collapse because of the work. People were spooked, something that doesn't happen often on the Hill.
Besides the stop work sign, nothing seems to have been done to fix the damage. The caution-caution tape is gone and life continues as if nothing ever happened. What do you do after something like this happens?
You get an engineer to make sure that your own building is structurally sound.
So he was throwing bricks under there and not concrete? Greeeaaat. Of course, the illegal basement makes sense now.
Please tell me you've already reported the man. Don't lose your common sense.
jordan, you dated a realtor? really? That's just so wrong on so many levels.
reya, after it falls down, I don't think there's much they can do except knock the rest of it down and shore up the adjoining bldgs.
siryn, he's not close enough to harm my fortress. We share a driveway, but it's a loong driveway. Still, I will narc on him in a few days. I have to get rid of anything that could possibly result in a fine for me first.
oh no--one of my gay ex roommates is a realtor.
I mean seriously. I have standards.
Ninja Man, you make me laugh.
I hope you aren't mad that it took me so long to reply to your email, I feel bad. :( I'm a douche.
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