Balcony Quake

Last week shortly after getting the boys breakfast drilling began in the apartment above us, it’s nothing unusual.  I was thankful they were getting an early start and hoping that maybe they’d be done by nap time.  After I took Calvin to preschool and I came home and we had dust all over our balcony and a started noticing a little crack above our window.  I didn’t think about it much and got ready for a full day of language.

I had to get a book from our room and checked the balcony again and noticed we now had larger crack and could see outside, 10 minutes later the crack grew larger. 

No one must get a permit to do remodeling, and workers aren’t always concerned with structural safety I didn’t know how structurally sound our windows were if they continued to drill.  Honestly I was worried they’d fall out.  Since they were bolted to the floor above us which was disappearing.

I showed our nanny and my language helper and got their advice, called Marvin and sent him a picture of what was going on.  So our nanny went upstairs with me and she let the workers have it, while I chatted with our neighbor.  In the end the workers were “sure” it wouldn’t be a problem and they would fix the gap.  My sweet neighbor even came down to clean up all the dust, twice.

The next day we woke up and there was a blanket hanging down covering our windows, which was really sweet of our neighbors to help prevent any more dust, but today they were welding, which means lots of sparks.  I fully expected to look outside to see a blanket on fire.

Thankfully that didn’t happen, and it turns out they are adding an extension to their balcony.  While this is great for us and gives me a little umbrella for my laundry in case of rain I have a few more minutes before my clothes are soaked, and some shade in the hot afternoon/evenings.  But I hope that their new balcony doesn’t come crashing down anytime soon.