Piling the hats on

As if I didn't have enough jobs (editor, writer, blogger…), now I can add the title of project manager.

A little background: I used to live in a backhouse, which is a house that sits on the rear of the lot, with the main house in front of it. I loved that house (more on that another time), but I had to give it up when my boyfriend and I split—the rent was too high for either of us to handle alone. My landlord was sorry to see us go, and I was sorry to leave her backyard, because she was a really great landlord.

Anyway, she called last week, looking for help. Seems the back wall of the backhouse was dangerously bowed out and she had to hire someone to fix it immediately or risk collapse (see the top windows, above). Problem was, she was leaving the country and renting out her front house for the rest of the summer, which she does every year. She wouldn't be around to supervise the work, and needed someone with some construction knowledge to keep an eye on things.

Hopefully she picked the right person. I helped her immediately by noting that only one of her two bids mentioned using historic lime mortar over a cement mortar, which is too hard for the soft bricks and may actually be the reason for the current problem. Then I met with her and the contractor and talked through the process with him so she could understand what he wanted to do.

A glitch already: she's left, and now I'm not sure the contractor wants to deal with me on the level he should. They were supposed to set up scaffolding last week, but haven't even brought it in, because the only approach to the house is through a narrow "horse walk"—a tunnel in the side of the front house. They thought they could fit, but I suspect they couldn't. Now they have to find another approach.

Thing is, in the 14 months I lived in the house and in the 20 years my old landlord has owned it, neither of us ever saw the back of the house (which sits 10 feet from the lot line) because there's no back door and the only way to get back there is through the apartment building on the next street. (That's how she learned about the problem, from the concerned super of that building who called her to tell her about the bow). So they have to get permission to go through that building. They had intended to haul all their equipment up the front of the building and over the roof to the back.

I hope that things go smoothly, but I suspect I'm going to have to keep on top of this guy. He obviously knows his stuff, but I see his placard on jobsites all over the neighborhood—a good sign, on some levels, but maybe also an indication that he's overextended.

And the worst part: there's a woman on the block who is notorious for calling the city to shut down jobsites for no reason (any complaint can stop work while the Department of Buildings investigates) and tear down building permits in an effort to harass the owners. I've already seen her snooping around trying to eavesdrop. I wish I could just grab her and tell her that if she dares shut down our site, she can be solely responsible when the current tenant ends up at the bottom of a pile of rubble.

Stay tuned. This is going to get interesting.