The Adventures of
David
Elizabeth
and Leif

Asbestos

Part of the conversation I had with the owner of the house behind me was about the Asbestos siding on the house. He said they had an approved plan for dealing with the asbestos shingles. They were going to cover it with siding and leave it undisturbed.

I did a bunch of research on this. Bob Vila sums my research up pretty well: "Asbestos siding presents no health hazard as long as it is left in
place on the building. Any hazard would come only if it were being
broken, scraped or sanded, which would release some asbestos fibers." Great — if the owner (and his contractors) follow through with their committment, there will be no problem. Unfortunately, this owner’s track record with me was not that great. I was a little nervous about whether we’d be exposed to asbestos and we kept a close watch on the progress of the renovation.

A couple of weeks ago, they re-sided the house. It looked like they might have broken a shingle or two, but I figured that was inevitable and probably not too hazardous. I went on a trip and when I came back I took a closer look at the debris that had been left from putting on the siding.

That looked like a lot more than a couple of broken shingles. With all these crushed and broken shingles littered about, I was a lot more concerned with the possibility that we’d been exposed to asbestos.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says that effects of asbestos exposure take 15-30 years to appear. The effects can be lung cancer or damage to lung tissue that restricts breathing and respiration. So, the worst-case "Puddleglum" situation: "I shouldn’t wonder if.." in 15-30 years one or both of us could be unable to work or die of cancer.

So here’s my question for those of you who put up with this blog: What should I do? I feel like the owner of the house should be held accoutable for his total disregard for his neighbors. I also feel like he needs to purchase a life / disability policy that will cover me, Elizabeth and Desiree until we die at a ripe old age of 99 years. If I were to get something because of this in 15 years, the most productive years of my flying career would be gone. If Elizabeth were to get sick because of this … no amount of money could compensate for that.

So, friends, should I retain a lawyer? Or am I just being too doom-and-gloom-y?

Taking Liberties

Last fall, I came home one day and some people were measuring and staking and stuff at the house behind my house. I had a little chat and they said they were going to add a room to the back of the house. The supervisor told the guy who was going to pour the foundation to get permission from my next door neighbor to drive a Bobcat through his yard.

The foundation guy rang the doorbell and Joseph, my neighbor, didn’t answer. He said to me, "I’m just going to drive through his yard, ok?" I told him it wasn’t my property and I couldn’t give him permission. He asked me if my neighbor was black. I said yes, but why does that matter? He said something like, "He’s black, he’ll be cool…" I emphatically repeated that he needed to ask permission of the owner. He then yelled across the street to our neighbor Ralph who was sitting on his front porch and said, "I’m going to drive a bobcat over here, ok?" Ralph said ok, not knowing what the heck the guy was talking about.

I guess the guy considered that "permission" because the next night when I got home from work, our neighbor’s grass was all chewed up, the guy’s truck was in his driveway, and they had poured a foundation at the house behind ours.

Nice bobcat track:

I guess he felt free to drive over Joseph’s bushes …

I ran into Joseph later and he was quite upset.

The following morning I saw the guy who chewed up my neighbor’s yard out working. I told him that my neighbor was quite upset. He didn’t care. I asked the worker for the house owner’s phone number. He wouldn’t give it to me. Then I noticed this (I went up on Joseph’s deck to photograph it):

I guess the foundation guy thought that since Joseph was so "generous" with his yard and driveway, that he wouldn’t mind "sharing" some of his electricity too. That was all I could take. I called the city and they gave me the name on the building permit for the site. I spend a couple of hours online before I finally was able to leave a mesage with Tim Pritts, the owner of the house.

Since I couldn’t get in touch with the owner, and there was no "Issuance of Building Permit" sign up, I called the city inspector and the police. The police made the foundation guy stop work and leave. The city inspector then put up a "STOP WORK" sign on the property. If you work after this sign is up, you’re subject to serious fines and possibly jail time.

That got the owner’s attention.

Later that evening, I got a call from Mr. Pritts. He profusely apologised and said that he’d never worked with that guy before and would never do it again. He said that that guy was off the job. He had also called Joseph and offered to make it right. Joseph is a nice guy and the apology was enough for him.

The guy wasn’t really off the job … I guess he’d already been paid because he was there a couple more times finishing up his foundation work.

Elizabeth went to visit our friends the Friderichs in Budapest this week, leaving me home alone with the dogs and cat. I had a fun adventure one night, taking my camera and tripod up to the top of a parking deck a little after sunset, about an hour after a thunderstorm had cleaned out the air.

I got to see a helicopter land … here are the streaks of its lights as it comes in for landing. These were 30 second exposures.

As it got darker, it was fun to "overexpose" the sky to pull the memories of the sunset colors out. The sky was actually almost dark (like in the helicopter landing shots above).

After doing whatever helicopters do for 20 minutes or so, this one took off. Here are a couple more 30 second exposures.