Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Homeowner gets cheap revenge for sloppy workmanship, shoddy building materials

My family lived for several years in a small town where we owned and renovated a Victorian home. In those years, we came to appreciate the quality materials and workmanship, even artisanship, that had gone into this jewel of a home. Hardwood floors, an all-oak open stairway, solid oak six-panel doors, lath and plaster walls and a giant clawfoot tub made it a delight to come home each day. Whoever built that house did so with a sense of pride.

When we learned that we were moving to Fayetteville, our first thought was to seek out another old house. Finding nothing of the sort available in the area, we reluctantly purchased a home in a brand new subdivision.

Now this house would not be fit for a world champion boxer or even a strutting televangelist. It is modest by such standards. But neither did the price tag place it at the other end of the scale. In fact, I paid more for this new house than the selling price of my Victorian. But clearly, the days of the artisan are no more.

Seeking to create the widest possible profit margin, our builder used the cheapest possible components he could find. When we moved in, windows, doors, hardware, fixtures, and floor covering were all of the kind of quality that one might expect to find in a double-wide, or a Winnebago.

But even worse was the workmanship. Doors were improperly hung and seams in the drywall were a free-handed, serpentine affair. Nearly every stud, rafter and nail in the drywall was visible due to the shoddy patchwork, and many of those nails have since popped out. The builders had actually left nails lying under the vinyl floors so that these worked their way through in a short time.

The subfloors were of “topographical interest” as they changed in elevation from one end of a room to another. And those same subfloors announced the approach of even the stealthiest among us with their squeaking and popping.

The kitchen counter appeared to have been built by a child. The rafters in the attic looked as though the workers had gone mad as they were placed at random and lacked any semblance of symmetry. Plenty of daylight found its way into that attic as well through the many gaps in the siding and sheathing.

I dread visits from my builder brother-in-law from the North, as each time he finds something new to marvel over.

These houses and these subdivisions are springing up in our area with all of the spontaneity, and longevity, of mushrooms. They are plastic and disposable.

When a national news program featured footage of a house slipping off of its foundation and crashing into its own back yard a few years ago, it was neither a mudslide in Malibu nor a sinkhole in Sanford. It was the handiwork of an Atlanta-area builder. My former Victorian will be yet standing long after the remains of this much newer house are buried in the landfill.

I have spent the past six years systematically correcting our builder’s shoddy work and replacing his cheap components. Cheap carpet has given way to good old-fashioned nail-down hardwood. Subfloors have been screwed down. Walls have been re-plastered and painted. If we once thought that purchasing a new home would at least eliminate the hard work of renovating an old one, we have since learned different.

On the day when I was tearing up the cheap vinyl in the kitchen to replace it with hardwood, my whimsical daughter and I had some fun with a marking pen. We wrote graffiti all over the vinyl flooring.

One thing led to another, and she traced my outline on the floor like a police silhouette of where a victim lay. Then I drew a shirt on the figure and wrote the name of our builder’s construction company.

Not quite finished with our shenanigans, we used a carpet knife and removed this outline of “our builder,” and placed it in the driveway where we could run over him in effigy.

After several days of this abuse, our victim mysteriously disappeared!

We later learned that our neighbor, whose home was built by the same man, had borrowed it for her driveway!

Mark D. Linville
Fayetteville, Ga.