15 - Free Demolition

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In early 2018 we bought a house down the road from where we were living. The house is in a village in the Peak District on a fairly steep road. The house is on the corner at the end of a terraced row.

Our new house had been empty for a little while and the outside needed some tidying up. We thought we might want to have a drive at the front because the existing surfacing was not great and rainwater kept depositing mud against the garden wall at the lower level. We made some sketches to show various contractors what we wanted, including demolition of the existing front garden wall, and asked for a couple of quotes.

We found the right contractor, price and the timescale for the work to be completed was agreed. They were supposed to finish before the end of February – just in time for us to move in. However, after a couple of weeks had passed nothing had even been started so I rang and rang but the contractor’s phone was silent. I tracked him down on Facebook only to find out that due to personal circumstances he could no longer do the work.

At this point it was late February, the winter hit the UK hard, especially the Peak District. So the plans for the driveway had to be put on hold for a while anyway but I contacted one of the other contractors to arrange for the work to be done by him instead.

On the first of March, just before moving in, we had a handyman painting and fixing bits and bobs in the house. I got a panicked phone call from the handyman saying that I needed to come quickly as there had been a terrible accident. Somebody had crashed their car into our new home! It sounded scary so I went straight there to investigate.

The driver was our neighbour’s girlfriend and thankfully she had not been hurt. She was driving down the hill in the snow, lost control and hit the front wall which was now partly demolished. Luckily no other cars or people were involved. The girl was very sorry and shocked. She kept apologising to me and said that her father was a gardener and would rebuild the wall to make good the damage. It was great to be able to reassure her that it wouldn’t be necessary and that we wanted the wall removed anyway. Her father came and removed the rest of the wall so we were able to then cut a little cost off the price we had been expecting to pay for the new driveway.

That seemed to work well for everyone.
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The BeGlad Movement big charity challenge is to collect 100 stories of good coming out of bad and reasons to be glad by the end of 2018, this is so we can help support each other with our experiences and to raise money for the Samaritans and Action for Happiness. If you would like to donate it would be so greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/beglad