Well, much thanks to the Chronicle for a very kind story yesterday in the Sunday paper. As I am a dirty landlord already, it is nice to also be an evil greedy developer =) Yes, I am referring to the lively discussion over at the Chron boards on the story, though I have to say it was pretty cool. A lot of people had some valid points, and even the trolls were funny. One criticism that came up that warrants more discussion was about demolition. Many people were upset at the thought of tearing out material and sending it off to a landfill. While it is true, construction debri is a serious, serious problem, as something like 22% of the total waste stream in the state comes from construction debri, sometimes you have no choice but to tear things out. For 2139 39th ave, the house had some serious termite damamge. There were parts of the first floor hardwood flooring that had so much termite damage, you literally stepped through the floor when you walked on it. There is nothing to salvage there. When a bathroom gets water behind the tiles and under the shower pan, sorry, but those walls are coming down. So my point is, sometimes demolition is unavoidable, and do not let the trolls get you down if you have to tear something out. It is a little like surgery, sometimes you have to remove a diseased part of your body to save you. Here are some before shots to consider:
Honestly, 30 year old red shag carpet? How are you going to salvage that?
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