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- 6️⃣9️⃣4️⃣2️⃣0️⃣@lemmy.worldEnglish4 days
I know this house! The woman waving on the front porch actually died, leaving behind her elderly husband. He was so devastated when she died, and he became kind of a recluse. The government wanted to tear down the house, so he got a bunch of helium balloons and lifted the house away to go live by a waterfall or something. Also there was a boy scout and a talking dog for some reason. I don’t know, I could be remembering this wrong.
- turtlesareneat@piefed.caEnglish4 days
I’ve got photos of me and my neighbors in the house across the street from the Covid era. In the few years since, it went vacant, and then started getting break-ins and squatters, we chased them out many times. Then one morning last December, I woke up to see the house engulfed in flames. It was about 130 years old. One of about 6 old houses torched by squatters in my area in the last year…
I have seen cases where owners of the property will do that for the insurance claim, it’s hard to prove it’s not the squatters that started the fire, then they can tear it down more easily and build new structures. People squatting in abandoned buildings can definitely start fires though. How many buildings normally burn down in your area? 6 in one place in one year seems like a lot more than should be expected.
- turtlesareneat@piefed.caEnglish4 days
We know there was an arsonist operating a few miles away last year. They arrested him for starting a fire, and then released him the next day, and so a lot of us believe it’s him or another serial arsonist, yeah. But as you say, there are many rea$ons old houses burn down :(
I love old houses, but not every old house is salvageable. It looks freshly painted, but it looks pretty old, 100 years or more, and it probably had a lot of structural issues. If it had termites as well, it was probably impossible to save. Who knows if it even had electricity or plumbing?
How much do you want to invest to fix an old house like this? When does it become a House of Theseus?
- GreyEyedGhost@piefed.caEnglish4 days
I heard a story from a friend in the Canadian military. One of his friends was celebrating Canada’s 125 anniversary in a British pub. The bartender laughed and said their thatched roof was older than that.
In Europe 100 miles is far. In North America 100 years is old. If we built (and maintained) better, our houses would last longer.
- 4 days
And then the alphabet mafia came by later that night and torched the place. RIP Gladys
