And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

No, this post is not about the song by the same name by Style Council or the book by Ralph Abernathy.

We live in the West Mount Airy section of Philly, with lots of big old homes. Ours is big, but not McMansion-sized. Stone house, built circa 189o. Last Thursday evening, a large section of the retaining wall at the edge of our property collapsed. Our home is located at the top of the hill, a few feet to the left of the spot where the failure occurred. The drop is about 20 feet, so we are talking about a pretty high hill.

Pieces of the stone crashed through the windows into the basement apartment next door. Luckily, the gentleman and his son who lived there (and were home at the time) were not hurt. Unfortunately, they had to move out, since the area was declared unsafe.

The owners of the apartment building have been very responsive and cooperative. They arranged for someone to stabilize the ground on our property until the wall can be rebuilt. It's supposed to rain this weekend, so there was a concern that the ground could erode further and impact our house.

So, now we are left with dealing with the rumble and sorting through the mess of shoring up the ground and repairing the wall. Of course, that also means sorting out issues related to ownership of the retaining wall, and trying to get the various insurance companies to respond and pay. That last part, I believe, will be the most difficult.

People always complain about lawyers. All I can say is, anyone who does just hasn't dealt with an insurance company. Once you do, the lawyer moves down on the list of people we love to hate, replaced by the insurer.