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One of those odd situations

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  • #1

    One of those odd situations

    I've been gonzo for a couple days and me, my wife, and the boys made a hasty escape to a rented beach house out on the outer banks of North Carolina. It was a good weekend with no phone, computer, or restrictions on the amount of beer I could consume. HA!

    Anyway, we got back home last evening and heard there had been a fire in town. Turns out it was a house my wife and I nearly bought when we scored our current shack. Totally one of those odd times when you can't be happy, because someone's life is in literal ruins, but you have this weird sense of dodging a bullet. If we had bought the place we would have come home to a pile of ashes.

    The reason we didn't buy the place (even though we really kind of wanted to) came down to the wiring, which was deemed the cause of the fire. The house was built in the 1820's and was still wired up with the knob and tube style junk that was used when the house was first put on the grid. It was creepy enough looking that the whole house was going to have to be rewired before we even moved in. It was all jacked up. I had a little electrical tester with me during one of the visits and as an example of how bad this place was, found that the wall sconces in the bathroom, the actual fixtures themselves were live! If you happened to touch the faucet and that fixture you were set to be zapped. There was lots of stuff that would have required attention there, just too much for us at the time.

    It's only about a mile from where we live now, and I drive by the house almost daily. The people that moved in, never updated it I guess.

    Weird feeling of, "That coulda been us!"

    Brian
    That which you manifest is before you.
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  • #2
    Re: One of those odd situations

    Wasn't meant to be........

    Go buy a lottery ticket.......... ;D

    (while the luck is still holding)
    Thom

    "The object is to keep your balls on the table and knock everybody else's off..."

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    • #3
      Re: One of those odd situations

      x2

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      • #4
        Re: One of those odd situations

        Good call Brian, that could been you...which would have been bad.

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        • #5
          Re: One of those odd situations

          There are lots of houses around here wired the same way :-\ That was one of the major things I was looking at when house shopping. The house I ended up buying was built in '55, and the wiring redone in 2004. My boss's house on the other hand... The wiring was redone at some point in the last 30 years, but the old wiring is still all there, and it's pretty scary looking even if it's not live (we think.....).
          Escaped on a technicality.

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          • #6
            Re: One of those odd situations

            Somewhere in the last couple of days (might have been here on BS) I came across this quote from Thomas Jefferson: "I?m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

            Good choices = good "luck"
            The official Bangshift garage door guru. Just about anything can be built using garage door parts, trust me.

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            • #7
              Re: One of those odd situations

              You'd think the building codes would have had to be met (updated) before a new owner could move in.
              They're not always just a source of revenue for municipalities - they're designed to save peoples lives usually.
              Phil / Omaha

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              • #8
                Re: One of those odd situations

                This was one old ass place. Rough hewn cedar posts in the basement and all.

                The "old house" thing seems to be better left to the folks with dough to spare, which, someday will hopefully be me. Our ranch was built in the late 1960's so it's like the USS Enterprise compared to the house that burned.

                We also saw one that the foundation at the rear of the house was leaning out at an astounding angle.

                Brian
                That which you manifest is before you.

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                • #9
                  Re: One of those odd situations

                  Good call on not buying it. Just like buying a new car, you have to know what you're getting yourself into...

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                  • #10
                    Re: One of those odd situations

                    My partner in Corvette stuff had a huge stash of parts in a building outside of town. Not correct zoning. When the county got wind of it they came down on him and it all had to go but he was able to find another place closer in. Then in the wildfires of 2005 the old building burned to the ground. Ha ha, dodged a bullet there, and didn't feel so bad about getting chased out.

                    But...

                    In the wildfires of 2007 the new place burned to the ground. The fire dept. did it setting a backfire, it was the only building on the block that burned. Idiots.

                    Perhaps I'll take pictures some time, it's a twenty-minute walk from where I sit. A few burnt-out body shells remain although most of the debris was cleared.

                    So don't ever take a bit of good luck for granted ;)
                    ...

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