They say that you should learn from your mistakes, but it's more fun to learn from other people's...
I'm interested in knowing the most disastrous/silly/seemed like a good idea a the time things which people have done on their houses, or have seen other people do, or have had to deal with the aftermath of.
Ours is a combination of a ridiculous thing the previous owners of our house did, and our own stupidity for not noticing it before we moved in, plus a bit of dealing with it badly.
The previous owners concreted and tiled a courtyard at the back of the house... but didn't put any drainage in. When it rains the water just sits on the tiles until it evaporates. To make things even more ridiculous, they had a spa pool there. God only knows how they emptied it, or even if they did. To deal with the lack of drainage I took up the tiles in the hope that the concrete would be thin enough to jackhammer through. Turns out it's at least a metre thick. Now the water sits on the concrete before seeping into who-knows-where, in the meantime causing the concrete to grow green stuff. We are about to pay some plumbers a few grand to install drainage and hook it up to the stormwater system at the other end of the property.
So they were idiots for building a courtyard with no drainage, and we were idiots for not noticing. Unimpressed with the property inspector, who also missed this. The joys of property ownership, huh?
I'm interested in knowing the most disastrous/silly/seemed like a good idea a the time things which people have done on their houses, or have seen other people do, or have had to deal with the aftermath of.
Ours is a combination of a ridiculous thing the previous owners of our house did, and our own stupidity for not noticing it before we moved in, plus a bit of dealing with it badly.
The previous owners concreted and tiled a courtyard at the back of the house... but didn't put any drainage in. When it rains the water just sits on the tiles until it evaporates. To make things even more ridiculous, they had a spa pool there. God only knows how they emptied it, or even if they did. To deal with the lack of drainage I took up the tiles in the hope that the concrete would be thin enough to jackhammer through. Turns out it's at least a metre thick. Now the water sits on the concrete before seeping into who-knows-where, in the meantime causing the concrete to grow green stuff. We are about to pay some plumbers a few grand to install drainage and hook it up to the stormwater system at the other end of the property.
So they were idiots for building a courtyard with no drainage, and we were idiots for not noticing. Unimpressed with the property inspector, who also missed this. The joys of property ownership, huh?
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