Miscommunication leads construction crew to tear down the wrong house

While undergoing a renovation can certainly be stressful, most of the time the results make it well worth the temporary inconvenience of being displaced from some parts, or in some cases all of your house. However, a mixup in Texas highlights the importance of making sure that you have hired a crew that you can trust. 

When David Underwood and his wife returned to their lake house in Fort Worth, Texas, this weekend, they first thought that they must have accidentally pulled into the wrong driveway, as the house was nowhere to be found. The three bedroom ranch was once owned by his grandmother and had been sitting vacant for a while, but the Underwoods had plans to fix it up and eventually move in. 

"We came around Silver Creek looking for the lot and my wife said, 'David, I think the house is gone,'" Homeowner David Underwood told Texas local news outlet KDFW. "We looked up there and sure enough, it's gone!"

When they looked around the property, all they could find was a concrete foundation. In a situation like this, it's easy to guess that the homeowners must have made some sort of mistake, but upon looking into it, it turned out that the city had ordered the condemned house next door to be demolished, and the crew accidentally leveled the wrong house. 

Perhaps most unbelievably, a neighbor tried to contact city officials and warn them that the crew was getting ready to tear the wrong building down, but the group proceeded, and the wrong house was demolished.

The property had been valued at $82,000, however, this incident will likely take a huge chunk out of its property value. The city has met to discuss compensation for the accidental demolition, though the home's owner was good natured about the whole thing, telling reporters, "I see so much around here, people that need help and have less that, it's an accident, let's do what's right and move on."

An incident like this underscores the importance of hiring professionals that you trust for high-stakes jobs like construction. The last thing that you want when finding an independent contractor is to find that they make unwanted changes to a neighbor's house instead of your own. As a member of the community, make sure that you evaluate the people you plan to work with on a people search website like Radaris to find out the good – or bad – aspects of their reputation. It could save you a major mess.