A house for demolition and the ‘scavengers’ are on the job

Press, 2 April 1980, Page 25

A house for demolition and the ‘scavengers’ are on the job

Story and pictures by

FELICITY PRICE

Advertisements like these appear only occat sionally in the “For Sale” columns of “The Press.” But when they do, the ' effect is devastating. What on earth, you might well ask, does anyone want with bits of old . wood and junk from a

near-derelict house? What use can be found for someone else’s unwanted rubble? You’d be surprised. I was. The variety of people who swarm all ■ over such old houses, pulling off pieces of timber, salvaging roofing iron, demolishing chimneys to get the bricks, is as astonishing as the speed with which their quarry is broken apart. Not surprisingly, the houses are far from grand. They have all seen better days. Many of them have been partly destroyed by fire or vandals or careless tenants. Yet, trailer-load after trailer-load of seemingly useless bits of brick and wood are spirited away in no time at ail. A week after the advertisement first appears, you can be sure there will be very little left of the onceintact dwelling. And a week after that the whole lot will, more often than not, be bulldozed into the ground, ready for the builders to move in or the weeds to take over.

Who are these people? What driving force motivates them to spend hours of their Saturday leisure time sweating over a demolition job that would be more suited to sledgehammers and bulldozers?

From my own brief experience of scavenging at these advertised demolition sites — I have been to a grand total of four — I have discovered that good old Kiwi go-getting, self-starting ingenuity is alive and thriving in Christchurch.

Two categories of salvaging and recycling enthusiasts immediatly stand out — people who intend to sell what they collect and make a quick buck; and the young couples who are doing up an old house and are searching for window frames, door surrounds, picture rails, weatherboards, bricks, and ornate mouldings to match their own. (I might add that I fall into the second category.) But within the broad categories, diversity of character and purpose is immense.

Among the most fascinating I saw was an old

man on a bicycle. He was dressed in a threadbare, ageing suit that, like his ■bicycle, was well past i s prime. His old white shin was frayed at more than the collar, and his broad, brown hands gripped a thin, roll-your own cigarette between thumb and forefinger. He had come to collect what pieces of iron pipe he could find. His bicycle pannier bags were full of rusty old iron — no doubt he would later do a deal with a scrap metal merchant. But any old iron was not his only interest. He had sat himself down on the floor at the side of the partly demolished house, where once a wall had been, crossed his legs, and struck up a conversation with whoever happened to be nearby. He started off discussing the task in hand — the house and what value it had compared with other open houses he had known. He mentioned in passing several other houses that were at that time open to

the elements and interested scavengers (several people, overhearing him, were later seen heading off in that direction). After meticulously rolling another cigarette, he purposefully lit it, and moved on to the weightier matters of politics, the economy, and the state of the nation.

He proved an interesting orator, this unknown collector of scrap metal. After a while, satisfied that he had collected all the scrap metal • and pipes on the site, and con- • tenf that he had delivered enough ideology, he wheeled his bicycle out to the gate, carefully avoid* ing any protruding nails, and cycled away.

He was not the only satisfied customer. Several metres away, along the side of the fence near the front of the house, a young man was sweating profusely, digging a deep trench and lifting out drainage pipes as he w’ent. “I’ve just finished build-

ing my own garage,” he explained to anyone who was curious to know his purpose. “I was quoted about $2OO for the drainage pipes from the garage down to the gate. Now I’ve just dug them •up for free.”

Not far away from him, two men who must have been up with the lark (it was only 11 a.m. and already they had the entire chimney demolished) were loading hundreds of bricks

into a van which they had backed up to the front of the house. That task finished, they went to drive away. But there was one small problem: the van, with the added weight of all those bricks, had become stuck on the floorboards of the house. (The wall had long since disappeared.). When last seen, they had given up any attempt to shift the van off the boards with crowbars, and were wearily unloading the bricks, ready to start all over again. In another room of the house, another team of people were slowly 'demolishing the remaining chimney. The fire surrounds and grates had been spirited away long ago, but the bricks were still useful for a pathway, patio, or wall. And in the same room, or what was left of it, a young couple were trying to work out a way of getting down the ornate plas-

ter ceiling rose without damaging it. (I doubt that they were successful. My handyman husband and I had tried to do the very same thing before them, without success. And, judging by the recently exposed screws attaching the rose to the ceiling, we were not the first either.) And what did we get out of it? Several metres of ornate, wooden picture railing, which we have since used as a window surround in the kitchen, to match the frame around the other window in the room. On our way home, we called in at a couple of the other addresses mentioned by the scrap metal collector. But there was very little worth salvaging there. All that remained were a couple of walls and the floor — and a man with a chainsaw was in the process of demo* lishing the latter. He explained he wanted the red pine bearers — very strong, thick timber beams — to be found under the house. For several weeks afterwards, the “For Sale” columns were bereft of any “help yourself” demolition notices. Then, in March, another one appeared. This time, I took a camera. And this time, in addition to the house, there was a thickly planted garden that provided some pickings for the scavengers. Who would have thought of trenching a tree and taking it away? Several people, apparently. By the time I arrived, one young man was hard

at work digging out a handsome, if somewhat prickly, tree. He was being "watched proudly by his mother, who declared that the lad had green fingers and the tree would surely grow. I had my doubts — especially as he had to get the thing out through, the house first. But when I returned, out of curiousity, a week later, the tree had gone, and so had several others that had once flourished nearby, if the gaping holes were anything to go by. The stench inside the house was terrible. The back half was badly charred from a fire (a neighbour told me the fire had been about eight years ago, but it looked and smelt recent.). And there were flies buzzing over the revolting, soggy rubbish on the floor. But the smell and the eyesore did not deter the bargain-hunters. Two voung men were hard at work pulling down a chimney, brick by painstaking brick. Another was carefully pulling away weatherboards. And up on the roof, a couple of men were removing all the roofing iron and guttering worth salvaging. The front fence didn’t last long. When I arrived, it was intact. Half-an-hour later, as I was leaving, only a couple of fence posts remained, and they were fast coming out under the persuasive grip of a muscle-man and his crowbar. Later, someone must have come along and dug

up the drainpipes, because the next week there was a familiar-looking trench near the side fence and no pipes were to be seen at the bottom.

My spoils? A cane tray which had been covered in filth under a pile of rubbish. After extensive dousings of hot water, disinfectant, and Jif, it looked almost like new, and quite decorative. A week later, with chimney demolished,

rooms exposed to the elements, two rooms without floors. doors and windows gone, and numerous holes dotted throughout the garden, nothing was left worth salvaging. No doubt, by now, the remains of a former family home will have been bulldozed beyond recognition.. Who knows, a block of flats will probably go up in its place some day soon. i