McMansion Mania or How I Learned to Live with the Building Boom
It has been crashing and thumping next door for more than a year now. It is the sound made when residential land values rise to the stratosphere and render the existing dwelling insignificant. It is the cacophony of a seven-figure tear-down, a radical remodel.
A modest Spanish style home used to be nestled on the center of the lot next door. It has been demolished and in its place now is an obese structure of indeterminate pedigree straining at the confines of the property line. Such radical remodels have become so prevalent across the country that a nickname has been invented for them: McMansions.
The building boom can be heard throughout cities, but it reverberates loudest in residential areas. Sharply increased property values bring invasions of jumbo machinery, raw supplies and construction crews in an effort to squeeze a lot of square footage onto a little bit of real estate. Once-quite neighborhoods suddenly sound as if the Marines are landing.
Here are examples of just a few of the aural assaults that accompany a building project:
Equipment: One morning at 5:27 (I checked the clock), I was awakened by an extraordinary grinding of gears, the screech of metal on metal and a Richter-rating earth tremor. It wasn’t an earthquake. It was a runway-length flatbed truck delivering a mammoth bulldozer next door. Since then, there has been a steady convoy of vehicles bringing sand, gravel, lumber, cement, trucks dumping dirt and trucks hauling dirt away, all to a symphony of hydraulic lifts and back-up beepers.
Radios: Building crews insist upon being entertained while on the job, therefore radios have become as standard a piece of equipment as air hammers or power saws. The favored method is to park a pick up truck near the building site, throw the doors open, crank up the radio and let it blare until the end of the work day.
Food Trucks: I could set my clock by the regular arrival of the food truck three times each day. It announces itself half a block away with a prolonged blast on its air horn (apparently to be heard over the radios). This one plays a variation of Woody Woodpecker’s laugh. The catering truck offends more than the ears. When it is finished vending to the workers at the building site, it blasts off in a cloud of diesel and bacon fumes.
Sundays: As a building project drags on past its projected completion deadline, the contractor may try to slip a crew in to work on Sundays. This is a violation of most city building ordinances for residential areas. If work continues after a request to stop, it can and should be reported. Check your area for a community noise office or a similar service bureau.
Learning to live with the boom means more than just wearing ear plugs. It means putting up with all sorts of unexpected problems. A partial diary of some of the events we experienced during a radical remodel gives an example of the scope of disruptions caused by neighborhood construction:
Utilities: Early in the project, we were notified that our gas utility service would be shut off briefly so the builder could have access to the lines. This required parts of our lawn and driveway to be torn out, but these were replaced by the utility company. However, when our gas furnace was to be re-connected, a private company had to be called to do the job – at our expense.
Aesthetics: An original adobe brick retaining wall between the properties, which was put up about the same time the original houses were built, was torn down by the remodeling contractor. It was replaced with a gray pumice block wall which the contractor refused to plaster or paint. Where once we had the look of an adobe Spanish hacienda, we now have the look of a maximum security correctional facility.
Flat Tires: Framers and roofers use pneumatic hammers that are to nails what assault rifles are to bullets. Nails tend to get sprayed everywhere. On three separate occasions we developed flat tires from running over nails that had strayed onto our driveway.
Bad Deeds: One day the builder came to the door and told us a workman reported seeing another workman steal our canvas car cover. The builder was embarrassed and offered to reimburse us.
Water: Before the new water meter was installed next door, the plasterers and painters used our outdoor spout as a source. We didn’t mind the use of our water until we saw the crews rinsing out their buckets, brushes and equipment and casting all the chalky residue water directly into our flower beds.
Parking: Finding a parking space in front of our house became a long-forgotten luxury due to all the work crew trucks and the dumpsters in the vicinity. The curbs became so congested that we had to accommodate a backlog of trash when the collection truck couldn’t get close enough to make the pick up.
After more than a year of living with the boom, I thought the worse was over. But I just learned that the new owners intend to remodel by digging a swimming pool in the backyard. I can hear the bulldozers and cement trucks coming up the street right now.
