Disassembling a small house

[CobyRupert]

Someone here had a trailer house unhook and slide in a ditch upright but really warped. Unmovable. The owner was given time to move it but before he could move it , it burned up, surprisingly. Then he could use a FEL bucket and dump trailer. Problem solved.

During lightning storms we are often advised to stay off of high structures, hill tops, open spaces, away from isolated trees, etc.....
...but that darn ditch lightning can be dangerous!

 

[EddieWalker]

Buddy had some land with an easement through Park land. They where really bad to deal with, constantly sending out the rooky Rangers to lock the gates, put chains across the roads or just sit there in a truck and stop us from driving the easement. Since they didn't have badges and where not allowed to arrest us when we ignored them, they would call the Sheriff on us pretty often. Even had them come after us in a helicopter. Since the easement was legal, and the owner of the land was heavily into politics and enjoyed fighting with the Park, nothing ever happened and he sued them a lot, and won every time. They also sent the Game Wardens after us, which just kept us legal and eventually we got to know them pretty good and they would even let us know where they saw a nice buck that we had permission to be.

In my experience, the Park will bluff, lie and make up stuff to get their way, or just bully neighbors. They hundreds of millions of dollars to buy more land, and in my experience, harassing neighboring land owners is the easiest way to get them to sell them their land. There is no reason to be afraid of the Park, but you have to know the law and understand they they are bluffing a lot of the time.

Having said that, if you do break the law, expect them to use everything that they have to punish you. They can be extremely vindictive.

Not knowing what you are dealing with, taking the house apart by hand sounds like a reasonable project. Just have lots of dumpsters on hand and keep the work site spotless. Bid it accordingly and add enough to deal with the BS factor. I would also have payment schedules based on how much progress you made and not wait until it's done. You do not know what the Park, or a Park friendly government agency might get involved in this and shut it down for a study of some kind, or permanently.

One of the most ridiculous studies that my friend had to do was prove that a certain type of salamander wasn't affected by using his easement. Turned out that the salamander in question didn't exist in that area of the hills and it was all just a way of wasting money to harass my friend. He sued, won, and I think he got $50,000 for that one. We did other studies for snakes and birds that ended with similar results. And I wont even go into what happened when we started trimming trees along the easement!!!!!

 

[ovrszd]

Eddie, I think he already stated he's just doing it to offer a helping hand, no money.

 

[breadtrk]

Just check your local codes, the Park service does not own or control anything outside of their fence. Period. land is land and the rules and laws are universal. They will huff and puff, tell them to pound sand.

 

[Doofy]

I don't think I'm going to be able to have an excavator come in. I'm not allowed to operate in the root zone of any of the Park Service trees. I don't see any way of approaching the house without crossing at least one tree.

Ordinarily, the law is that if a neighbor's tree crosses the line onto your property, you can do whatever you want with the part that's on your land. The law is different with national parks. They own the whole tree, you can't do anything to it. The fines for damaging their trees can be tens of thousands of dollars.

Sounds like a total bunch of bureaucratic A-holes. Not a job I would be doing.

 

[HarryVanderpool]

Just have lots of dumpsters on hand and keep the work site spotless.

And send the dumpsters to where???
Make sure you FIRST look into your state's asbestos / lead abatement requirements.
In Oregon, dumps WILL NOT take demolition refuse without proper certificates.

 

[MossRoad]

Just check your local codes, the Park service does not own or control anything outside of their fence. Period. land is land and the rules and laws are universal. They will huff and puff, tell them to pound sand.

You ever live in a historic district?

 

[rScotty]

Just check your local codes, the Park service does not own or control anything outside of their fence. Period. land is land and the rules and laws are universal. They will huff and puff, tell them to pound sand.

QUOTE=MossRoad;5668033]You ever live in a historic district?[/QUOTE]

That's right. And we could list a dozen other examples as well.
Rules regarding what you can do with land are not universal - although I join in wishing that they were. Or at least that they made more sense.

I'm reminded of Paul Krugman's new book, "Arguing with Zombies".

 

[3Ts]

Just because you have an easement boundary doesn't mean that's fixed. I have an easement (power line) that is 15' each side of the power line, but the way it's worded, if I have a tree that they think may fall on the line, they can come onto my property to cut it down. So a 40' tree, 15' easement, they can come another 25' beyond that to cut the tree. (That's worst case scenario, in actuality, they'll come at my request and cut the top off until it's short enough it won't fall on the power line. I'm ok with that.)

 

[ruffdog]

Someone who is good with an excavator shouldn't have any problem putting that house into a dumpster in a day or two without needing to enter their property.

Aaron Z

^^Yeah, my neighbor does it all the time. I would trust him with my life to be within 3" with that bucket. :crossfingers: