Post by Brent George on May 15, 2022 2:51:49 GMT
The Pensioner, The Sinking House and the Council Running Scared of Setting a Precedent if it Helps
Stuff - Taranaki Daily News: 14-May 2022
It was supposed to be her forever home. Her sanctuary as she got older.
Instead Barbara Harwidge’s New Plymouth house is a prison of cracking walls and sinking floors and those who hold the key to her escape are “too scared” to help.
What the 73-year-old grandmother knows now, but didn’t know in 2006 when she bought the house, is that it had been built on an old sawdust pit, that had been overlaid with fill made of mixed ash and topsoil. And underneath all that was a swamp.
So each day the house sinks a little bit more, groaning as though in pain as the doors buckle and floor bends.
Stuff - Taranaki Daily News: 14-May 2022
It was supposed to be her forever home. Her sanctuary as she got older.
Instead Barbara Harwidge’s New Plymouth house is a prison of cracking walls and sinking floors and those who hold the key to her escape are “too scared” to help.
What the 73-year-old grandmother knows now, but didn’t know in 2006 when she bought the house, is that it had been built on an old sawdust pit, that had been overlaid with fill made of mixed ash and topsoil. And underneath all that was a swamp.
So each day the house sinks a little bit more, groaning as though in pain as the doors buckle and floor bends.