Comments on: This Teardown Hits Home

By: Lew

Lew — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:48:00 +0000

Great great post Dana!

I realize how attached I am to inantimate objects when I trade in a car. As I’m cleaning out my old car to get into the new car … for some reason I think the car is going to miss me. Then I realize it’s probably not going to really care all that much because it never changes expression and the front headlight doesn’t shed a tear

By: Dane Huffman

Dane Huffman — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:25:38 +0000

Dana, I just can’t believe this house is being ripped apart. It’s just shocking that such a great house could be discarded.

I find myself thinking, Gosh, what happens someday when we sell? But I had a moment similar to yours six years ago, during the ice storm. We were without power and had stayed with friends who had a generator around the corner. I went back into our house to get something, and the house was dark, cold, almost eery.

And there was all our stuff – and I realized that’s all it was, just stuff. All those things meant nothing to me, and my family meant everything. As much as I love our house, and still do, I realize home is where your family is, not the structure.

Great post – thanks for sharing.

By: Subway Scoundrel

Subway Scoundrel — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:37:58 +0000

As usual, great story. Also a great neighborhood as I know it well. Also, one of the greatest sledding hills right around the corner. As kids, we would venture over to that hill. Amazing how things change but I guess it has been that way since time begin.

of course, the following could happen. I actually saw video on this but can not find it. Here is the story

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/19715994/detail.html

By: RaleighRob

RaleighRob — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:32:49 +0000

Agree with miamiblue—it does seem like throwing away something perfectly good. The first picture of it at the top of the article makes it look like an elegant mansion compared to any house I’ve ever lived in! (I wouldn’t even know what 4000 square feet even looks like….our family of four was crammed in a forty-year old ranch less than a quarter that size.)
I can’t imagine the mindset of anyone who’d think that house wasn’t good enough. (I cringe thinking what type of oversized monster will be built in its place.) It’s one thing if it were poorly maintained and falling apart, but it’s not. I bet anything it was probably in better shape than the house I’m currently living in, as well as the one my parents raised me in. Oh, but we’re not rich, so what do we know….sigh.

By: miamiblue

miamiblue — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:01:00 +0000

The thing that bothers me the most about things like this is that it is basically throwing away something that is perfectly good. I know I am probably in a very small minority in my generation (under 30), but I grew up in a family that never threw anything away unless it was completely broken and could not be fixed. My father was a master of exhausting every possible fix before discarding something. Our society is quick to discard anything even if it is still good, but I just can’t rationalize such thinking.

This house was perfectly good. In fact, it was probably a lot better than good. I’m glad that Habitat was able to salvage much of the house in order to build someone else something that they might not have had otherwise, but it still seems like a major waste of resources to me. The materials of the house are not necessarily being wasted, but the resources to tear it down and build something presumably bigger in its place uses a lot of energy in many forms.