Building codes??? What are those?

May 31, 2013-

HEY! It's *bleeping* early in the morning!  What's with all the hammering and banging and grinding noises happening in our neighborhood???  

Several of the houses in our block and in our subdivision are having work done on them. And the noise in CONSTANT and freaking annoying. Oh my HEAD!  Make the noise stop!!!! 

This house is at the entrance to our block.

Warm weather = construction work

Not sure if you can tell from the photo but there is a tiny bit of bowing/curvature going on ….I'm guessing it's not supposed to be like that! And don't you love the stuff they pile up on the street?

Except- here's the catch- all the additions and building happening are apparently ALL ILLEGAL. Yep.  Well….at least that what's we've heard from a few different sources.  How the heck can these people do something that they know is illegal??? (maybe there are some that aren't illegal but I doubt it!)

Why doesn't anybody do something about this?

They know it's illegal and yet no one does anything about it – unless someone is injured during the construction. And yes, workers have been injured on the job.

Another house having work done.

Here's a house, across the street from us, that was flooded last fall.  Nobody lives in that house and I'm guessing there was substantial damage to the basement and foundation.  So, let's put an addition on the back of it!!!:

so, the basement is wrecked but let's put an addition on the back of the house! Isn't that house big? Nobody lives in there…so why the addition?

and here's the other side of the above house:

They've put up a concrete barrier in front of the garage- I'm sure it's preventative measure against future flooding. They didn't remove the garage door or wall it in- they just put up a fence. I'm guessing it might not last a year.

Check out the amazing crack along the foundation of this house (I may have shown this house to you before…it's across the street from us):

That crack is something else, isn't it? Wouldn't that terrify you if you owned this house? Well, there isn't anybody living in there. It's one of MANY empty houses in our subdivision. I do NOT understand why they build houses and leave them empty. It's crazy!!!

Here's the thing: these workers are probably migrant workers.  They're probably not trained in proper building techniques.  These migrant workers are probably hired cheaply off the street. And I'm guessing there is no health insurance or health care that comes with the job.  They probably also have family they've left behind in their home-town counting on them for financial support. Shouldn't there be safety measures put into place to keep these people safe and not get hurt working on the job??? 

I heard that last year a worker was killed while working on a building project in our subdivision.  This spring a roof collapsed on a recently built addition injuring a few workers.  (at least the police came and made the owners tear down that newly added addition…but friends are guessing that once the dust settles the owners will try building again).

Hmmmmmm….gives you something to think about, doesn't it?