The 'men in white coats' came last week...

Hmmm...well maybe it was more like 'men in white overalls'... :-)
And it wasn't to my place that they came, but to the 2 houses across the road...

The houses that are each being replaced by 7 townhouses...
But these 50s era houses are mostly lined with fibro sheets or asbestos sheeting...

So there are strict protocols that have to be followed to firstly remove and dispose of that fibro...there are a number of specialist firms that remove asbestos from sites. Workers wear overalls, special masks and usually sheets of heavy plastic are hung up in rooms where the asbestos sheeting is being removed, to contain any dust/airborne fibres.

Here's one 'man in white overalls' checking out the first house...there would be fibro in the eaves' lining...

A little while later he's really getting stuck into the front of the property, while his workmates can be heard inside, removing walls etc...
Note his mask to protect him from possible breathing in of fibres...

Between the trailer and the house is a very large skip...it is lined with heavy black plastic...

All the removed asbestos was placed in this skip and a worker hosed each lot as it went in...keeping the fibro wet helps prevent the fibres becoming airborne...
When the houses were emptied of all fibro, the black plastic liner in the skip was sealed up ready for a company which specialises in safe disposal/containment of asbestos, to take it away.

The skip is gone and the house waits its fate...

 A few people have asked me how I feel about all these developments. I guess I take the attitude now that it's going to happen and yes there will be noise, dust and dirt etc. But the completed new houses and units already in the street are quite aesthetically pleasing...they may be tiny little boxes but they have good street appeal. So far, all the new neighbours in the street are very quiet...I guess they are so busy going to work to earn money to pay the $2000 per month rents! lol

Number 52 through the years...

Regular readers would remember all those posts that I have written over the past 13 months about the redevelopment of the house block next door to us. From late April last year,the 50s house has been demolished, the block cut and sculpted by large machinery, foundations dug and laid, and an unimaginable amount of concrete has been poured into the site. Eventually from all this organised chaos and dust, 7 townhouses have emerged to take the place of that original house. Being me, I've constructed a little timeline of this development for this post, starting in the 1930s...

On the rise behind, and to the right of these houses is the farmland that would eventually become our street...

1932 approx

After WW2 this area became part of a large housing estate...the next photo is No 52 in the mid 1960s...the house is 13 years old...

The next photo shows No 52 with a little glimpse of what eventually would become our house...

The reason why I have these photos is that No 52 was the childhood home of a school friend of mine and she lent me the photos to scan and use in this blog post...
Here is Irene and one of her sisters in their high school uniforms...they are standing beside the front steps...

The years went by and the house was owned by a succession of people.The house would eventually spend many years as a rental property for its then owner. In the years since I've lived here, there have been about 5 different renters...we knew though that one day the owner would redevelop the site as this part of the suburb is zoned Res B...multiple dwellings. Therefore he wasn't planning to spend much money on maintenance...so the little house languished while waiting for this redevelopment...
March 2013...the tenant had to be out by the 16th...(I bet he didn't get a reduction in rent because the place was almost tumbling down...note those eaves!)

the western side of the house...

a closer look at that fascia...

Then the signs went up, a week after the tenant left...late March 2013

Early May 2013...
I was actually away in New Zealand from late April to May 14, so my dear neighbour took photos for me :-)
Like this one...

 All gone...

June 2014...the back of the block...

 The front of the block...

Our closest neighbours...well one of them...there's a detached house behind this one too!

A peep at the garden of that first house

And as marker that's still there where our front fences meet.

Disclaimer: I've changed the number of the house to 'protect' all those involved. :-)

  

Rehabilitation....Restoration?

A few weeks before we went away, I wrote a post about the sad state of a garden bed in the front yard. To me, it was certainly a sad state of affairs and the building development next door was totally to blame. For some reason, they had  built the 7 houses and then announced that they would have to come on to our property to dig trenches for the storm water drains...hello? In that post I wrote about how we gave them permission but that we expected the least disruption possible and any damage to our property would be repaired and gardens restored.

The temporary fence was moved yet another 35 CM or so into our property... So nearly a metre of our property is fenced off...

In this photo, the fence is resting against our house on the western side...and there was a large heap of dirt against it... This situation affected about 2/3 of our property line. The men working on this project removed my garden edging blocks so they could get the digger into next door....

They finished this work in just over a week...and this is the garden bed after that work was completed.

The shrubs near the front fence were untouched, the pentas and the large geranium were knocked about a bit but had survived. The topsoil had been taken away as had about a square metre of the end of the bed. My 'marmalade plant' (streptosolen jamasonii) was battered but there was still some of the plant remaining. My poker plant didn't survive. 

Guess who got a phone call from me? Yep! Brad the Project Manager. He promised that it would be put right and that plants would be replaced. As we were going away, he suggested that I give him a list of the plants when I returned.

The next photo shows the 'marmalade' plant before work started....

. 

This photo of the same plant was taken last spring...

So let's fast forward to last week when we arrived home...

Looking towards the front garden bed that had been wrecked...a wooden fence has been built and turf has been laid.

My dear neighbour watered the turf each day...and I have been doing that as well...just for the novelty. 

Generally we don't waste water on our lawn...it survives on rainfall...

The edging has been restored and the missing section of the garden has been replacd with new topsoil. Now is there something wrong in this next photo?

That mulch is stacked up against the fence... A no no in a termite prone area such as Brisbane. 

Talking of termites...that black box in the photo is a termite monitor box. It is a brand new one which has been paid for by the developers of next door. Their subcontractors dug up the old one and threw it away as it was no where to be seen when we came home...even digging into the mulch brought up zilch. This photo also shows how empty the garden bed is...so Brad has a list of the 3 plants I expect to be replaced. My beautiful marmalade plant was a victim; under the assumption that it may have got covered with soil, I even dug into the mulch and topsoil to see if I could find it...but no luck. 

The croton survived...and the Brunfelsia...

The geranium was fine when we left home on March 18...but it's gone now!

I  have a number of new plants that I've grown from cuttings which I could use to fill in the gaps. But I'm resisting that urge to replant straight away, and will wait for the replacements. (I so wish I had have struck some cuttings from the Marmalade bush) :-)

The progress on the building site...

Well another week has gone by and there's been quite a bit of progress next door...
Last week the plumbers were hard at work in some wet, muddy conditions...but finally all those pipes had been laid...

On Monday morning, a truck arrived with pallets of blocks...

The digger operator was still moving piles of soil around...I took some photos from the front veranda...he was to work on that throughout the day...

Meanwhile, those pallets were unloaded...

That night about 6pm, another truckload of bricks arrived and were unloaded in the dark...the little forklift has a headlight with a very strong beam!

Next morning, there were pallets of blocks all over the site...

There are some blocks already laid...

The man in the blue shirt was sweeping all the concrete footings...what a big job!

The plans lying on the ground...and you can see some of the blocks laid around the pipes...

 In the photo below, you can see the walls taking shape...

Another view...

Another night time delivery...more pallets!! lol

here's Brad (closest to camera) conferring with one of the tradies...

 The view from my sewing room...

A delivery of rocks...

From our 'office', we can see the wall growing higher...

This photo is taken from near our back door...

Standing near the side boundary at the back of our house...

 The last 2 photos were taken on the front footpath...

And here is the plan for this building site...well half a page of the plans...

It won't be long now before my lovely view will be gone...