Thinking About Big Houses

No more silence and peace around here. At least not until they finish tearing-down old, perfectly servicable houses and replacing them with huge un-necessary mansions with more bathrooms than bedrooms.

I am conflicted by my desire for personal peace and quiet and my belief that others have the right to improve their property. After all, doesn't the neighborhood benefit from nicer homes? All boats rise with the tide, isn't that what they say? The answer is not always yes.

For those of us who live in the older, perfectly serviceable homes that are getting torn down, the property values do not necessarily reflect the inflated value of the mansionized neighborhood. If the potential buyer is only interested in your lot, not your house, then clearly no one will care about your bathroom tile or kitchen counters. A tear-down house is only worth the price of the dirt, as one real estate guy told me.

As retirees, we are acutely aware that we are approaching the time when we will be wanting to migrate to a more accommodating living space. By that I mean all the rooms on the same level.  Low maintenance yard. Near ammenities and medical services that we will unfortunately need as entropy and gravity work their evil powers.  Some day, someone will knock on the door and make an offer we cannot refuse.  They will demolish my beloved screen porch, dig out my hostas and replace them with expensive ornamentals, replace our dilapitated cedar fence with a taller one made of plastic.  Maybe they will chop down the trees and replace them with a swimming pool, like the new one down the street.

These noisy mansion builders are clearly non-union. They start banging and sawing at 7am, and shouting in a foreign tongue. (Hey, I am not xenophobic: they are obviously doing jobs that English speaking natives do not want.) American construction workers typically quit at around 4pm. But these guys keep sawing and banging and shouting all day until dark - which these days is 7pm.  I'll bet Mr. Trebbiani (the builder who put up most of the houses in neighborhood back in the 50's) would be shocked and amazed to see his modest 2200 sq ft homes demolished and replaced with 4,000 sq foot behemoths to house a family of 5 - with a bedroom and bathroom for each person.  He probably would have thought, "You need a bigger lot."

In the old days, 12 of us would be living in a three bedroom flat with one bathroom and a ten gallon waterheater.  We huddled together for warmth.  We had to walk 8 miles in a snowstorm to get to school wearing worn out sneakers, even in Summer!  Ok,  it wasn't really that bad.  But I wonder what kind of spoiled little princesses and wusses are being raised in houses where no one needs to wait to get into the bathroom.  Those moments spent waiting for a sibling to emerge were important lessons about balancing stress and patience. (Never let them know you are in a state of urgency, or they will take much longer.) These were character building preparations for an adult life of challenge and competition for scarce resources.

When I was growing-up, vacant lots still existed. We loved to go into empty half-built homes and play hide and seek. We ask for a few scrap boards and the carpenters would give us some nails and we would go off and build a tree house in someone's yard. The mother of the house would eye us with our tools and wood and demand, "What are you kids up to?"
"We are gonna build a tree house."
"Ok, be careful. Don't poke your eye out"

Today the mom would be so worried that one of us might hurt ourselves (and possibly sue) that she would forbid the project on the grounds of safety. "You'll fall and put your eye out!  Why don't you kids play down in the rec room?  We have a new 150 inch screen! Wear your helmets"