US woman returns from holiday to find house demolished by accident
Imagine returning from vacation to find your home destroyed.
That was the nightmare scenario American homeowner Susan Hodgson encountered in September when she found a pile of rubble in place of what used to be her longtime family property.
“I am furious,” Ms Hodgson told The Associated Press on Saturday. “I keep waking up thinking, ‘Is this all a joke or something?’ I’m just in shock.”
Her ordeal began when her neighbour gave her a call while she was away asking if she had hired anyone to carry out the demolition work at the home in Atlanta.
“It’s been boarded up for about 15 years and I said ‘no’ and she said ‘well there’s someone over here who just demolished the whole house and tore the entire house down’,” Ms Hodgson told Fox 5 Atlanta.
When the neighbor confronted the workers, one told her to shut up and mind her own business, Ms Hodgson told AP.
She then sent a family member down to the site to find out what was going on and ask the person in charge for his permit.
This was when the the workers realised they were at the wrong address, she said.
Even though no one had been living in the home in southwest Atlanta at the time, Ms Hodgson said she had been maintaining the property for years.
“We keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean,” she told AP. “The taxes are paid and everything is up on it.”
Ms Hodgson said she has since filed a report with the police and has talked with lawyers but finds herself still in limbo.
On Saturday, she told AP that the Atlanta-based company responsible, You Call It We Haul It, has yet to contact her.
“It’s just hard to believe someone thinks they have the right to just come and tear something up and walk away from it and didn’t come back and say ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘what do I need to do to fix this’. It was an accident. They didn’t give me nothing,” Ms Hodgson told Fox 5 Atlanta.
In a statement to Atlanta television station WAGA-TV, the company said it is investigating and working to resolve the mishap.
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