Another Centenarian Lost

It's been raining all morning with the occasional grumble of thunder so I didn't really think about the low rumble until I realized it had been going on for more than a minute.  I turned off my sewing machine to get a better listen.  Still hearing it, I went to my window and this is what I saw.

They're tearing down the house across the street from us!  This is the one that caught fire last fall.  The house was built after ours, but we still think it was about 100 years old - a centenarian.  We had hoped that the owner would renovate it and they did pull the permits in mid-April to do that.  But they must have decided it would have been too much work or money and the permit changed to a demolition permit in early May.

Note the onlooker.  This attracted quite the crowd!

We've been watching a steady stream of utility companies come out over the last 3 weeks as they turned everything off.  That included the water department digging up the street and capping off the water pipes.  Then came the folks to take out the old mouldings, fireplace mantels, pipes, wires, window glass and anything of value.  Hopefully, they will be reused somewhere else.

If you've never seen a house torn down before,  I can tell you that it's really an interesting thing to watch.  Since there are houses on either side, the Cat operator has to be careful about how he takes everything down so that he keeps all the debris in a nice neat little pile.  Kinda like a jigsaw puzzle.

At one point, we saw a rat scrambling around on what remained of the roof.  I'm sure he was forlorn about his home being torn down.  I hope he doesn't decide that our house looks like a nice replacement!

This was the perfect day to tear this down, as there was a steady rain to keep all the dust down.  I'm sure there's asbestos and lead paint in there, given the age of the house.

 

Later on, they'll come back with a big bulldozer and scoop everything up and into dumpsters to be carted away.  That's 100 year old wood in there being thrown into the landfill.

Our view has changed (for the better) but it's sad to think that several somebodies could have saved this house over several decades and they chose not to do so.   And now there's nothing left but the urban vultures picking over her bones for anything valuable.

The Urban Vulture, Kansas City's official bird

Watching this, J. and I decided to put in an offer on that house that I posted about earlier.  We can't bear to see it come to the same fate.  We'd also like to buy this lot.  Look at that beautiful old walnut tree in the backyard. Wouldn't this be a great place for an orchard?