The building next door...

In keeping with the theme of the last blog post, I thought that it was about time I did another update on the transformation of the block next door to DH and I, from one house to seven!
Clogged street from tradies' parking has continued...

The ceilings of all the front balconies have all been lined and lights have been installed...

 A slightly closer view of the tiny balconies

When this photo below was taken, the downpipe was gushing water on the ground...since then, the piping has been extended to ground level but no stormwater access has been provided yet...

The thick cabling poking out of the side wall of the front house next to us...

A few weeks after the above photos were taken, some more tradies arrived and worked steadily over a number of days...firstly the lot of thick cabling was threaded through some piping...

And then finally the air conditioning unit was installed...

This is just my opinion but I think the residents of these homes will really need the aircon because the houses are tiny and don't have much natural cross ventilation. Moving on now with the progress report :-)....

 I've moved to the house beside our backyard, but have trespassed walked behind that house to have a 'sticky beak' at some more of the terraced houses...well the back of them at any rate. Hmmm...these couple of houses have courtyards at below street level...

Next photo shows the long view over those courtyards in the previous photo...

 This is the back door of the  terrace house next to us...

 And the next photo is that house at the back...showing that the electricity box has been installed...

Then one morning recently DH and I noticed that the concrete pump truck had arrived...we hadn't seen one at this site for a few months!

 The next day I took some photos of the work that had been completed after the concrete delivery...it was used in those below street level courtyards...I took some photos at different angles...

 Looking straight down into concrete canyon the first courtyard; we must hope that we never get heavy storms like January 2011 and 2013...I don't think those 2 drains could handle such downpours.

 Looking towards the street over the walls...

So that's what has been happening on this site in the last 3 weeks or so...on the outside at least. We know that the tilers have been working hard and yesterday I saw a tradie carrying a roll of carpet into one of the terrace houses...

Work continues next door...

The last time I updated about the building next door, I showed this photo...
Slabs all poured...

Well things certainly moved rather quickly after that...a few days later...

The walls of the little houses are going up...

Houses 2-6 all in a row...

Yet another delivery of bricks...

Ha Ha! he doesn't know I'm watching and photographing from my kitchen window...
I had noticed previously that the bricklayers are all mature men... good on you Brad and Rich for using older tradies!!

 This is the view from the little bedroom near the kitchen that we use as an office...those walls are sure growing!

 Another view from the kitchen window...note how high that wall in the foreground is growing....

The other walls are growing taller by the hour...

Remember that wall just outside my kitchen window...it grew in that last half hour...

And grew!!! And that is my new view...

This is what that wall looks like from the back steps of our side veranda...

Once the walls are built up it's time for the truck which pumps concrete from the cement truck into the wall cavities...

Photo taken from front veranda

 Obviously the first level (bricks) of all the houses is now finished...

A bit of a break for Brad and one worker as the cement pourer sets up at the back of the block...

 Looking through the kitchen window while the 'concrete man' pours into the brick cavities...

The plans show that this wall is part of the garage...and that's the loophole that allows it to be a mere 20 cm from our boundary

 Here he is standing on the wall of house #2...

So as you can see by the photos, last week saw a lot of progress on the site next door... 'stay tuned' for the next update! :-)

It's been like looking in at an ant colony here on Tuesday...

Yet another scheduled blog post written on Tuesday night.
My reference to an ant colony is my way of describing how busy the building site was next door today. Brad the Builder seems to be an amazing organiser with all the resources and tradespersons turning up at just the right time to get on with the job of building all these houses.

These boys arrived along with the machinery before I got up this morning! ( So now you know I stayed in my nice warm bed till after 7 am! lol) This is the view from my sewing room side window...the outlines of the buildings is easily seen...

 Now by lunch time the scene looked like this... it looks like a Time Team dig! lol

Looking towards the back of the property here... some loads of gravel have been left...

If you look closely, the footings are in place for house #1... 

Looks like 'knock off' time now...the equipment is being loaded back into the trucks...

We certainly get a ringside seat at this 'show' lol!

Hmmm... not so good...

Yesterday's post focussed on the delightful things I found in the pile of mail waiting for us when we returned home. But yesterday we came home to some not so delightful things...(Yes Vireya, there were some bills including the one from Urban Utilities showing our water bill had gone up dramatically as the rates have been increased.) But this was something else...remember the rental house next door???

sad little house, slowly being allowed to fall to pieces...

 Remember I said that the site was going to be developed? And the builder spoke to DH a week or so before we went away and asked if it was alright to erect temporary fencing on our property and DH okayed this... Do you also remember that I gave my neighbour a camera so she could take photos if the demolition took place while we were away???  Yesterday morning while waiting at Christchurch airport Judy texted a warning that 'there was a hole next door'... so we were prepared...

Here are some of the 'demolition photos'...

The house is gone and our house is now the 'end house' albeit temporarily! 

Now for some photos I took yesterday...that's my compost bin (plus numerous other gardening items) now in the building site and off limits to me...go figure???

Our pathway down the side of the house is now quite obstructed...

Wet weather has meant the cessation of digging and trucking off the dirt...

Messy...

DH is planning to talk to the builder and see if our items can either be 'unfenced' or brought back into our yard for relocation. If I speak to him, I will need to be restrained as I'm quite angry; from our laundry window to our back boundary our property and possessions have been compromised. Since I took these photos yesterday I've discovered that our frangipani tree in the front garden has been destroyed just leaving a few trunk cuttings...I can't even find where the root ball is...

Sorry for the rant, but I just can't believe how lazy these people are and how arrogant to presume they can take over parts of our property...they are digging out right on the boundary line although in a few parts they are digging into our property. Stay tuned!!