Day 19-26 (aka drama, drama, drama!)

I’m not sure where to begin with this entry. While Brad and I were in Iowa for my youngest brother’s wedding not much happened on the job site, but a lot of words passed between Manor Foster (foundation boss) and my neighbors (Jason & Lindsay). I can only give you the information second hand, but I quite enjoyed hearing the stories (very dramatized) from each side. They’re fairly similar, but I must admit Manor seemed to be more honest than Lindsay. The reason I believe this is because Manor owned up to all of the negative things Lindsay said about him while Lindsay failed to mention Jason cursing like a madman in Manor’s face. Should my small-framed, hippie, plant-growing neighbor take on a construction guy? I think not. And here’s the story:

Last Thursday (Day 20) some construction sand was unloaded in the alley to be used for the base of our foundation. Due to a steel shortage the foundation project was put on hold a couple days, so there was no need for the sand until they knew the steel was coming. On Monday (Day 24) the sand was still in the alley (closer to Jason’s house than to our garage) so Jason called Manor and said if it wasn’t moved by the end of the day he’d have it moved. A little background: Jason thinks he owns the alley. Manor said he’d remove it by days end. At 4:45 Jason started shoveling sand and moving it into our front driveway. A guy looking for work happened upon him and offered to help. The two of them were moving sand into the worker-guy’s truck and into our driveway (when we got home Tuesday evening we arrived to a pile of sand in our drive and couldn’t park there). At 4:50 Manor showed up with another guy to start moving the sand. Both sides of the story matched up to this point. The argument that ensued between the two of them also matches up for the most part, but Lindsay (the girlfriend) made it sound as though Manor was the only bad guy. And here’s what I know about the argument. It will be a little stream-of-conscious since that’s how I hear it in my brain. For the most part it’s a bunch of angry jibber-jabber.

Lindsay’s story: Jason & Lindsay were planning on having a party Friday but had to cancel because sand was in “their driveway” (the alley they think they own). I never knew sand in a driveway could cancel a party, but OK. When Manor showed up Jason and another guy were putting sand in a truck. Manor ran up to him and got in his face and started yelling. Jason laid out what the problem was, but Manor looked like a monster who was going crazy and that scared Lindsay. She thought Manor was going to hit him, so she got between the two of them. Manor then yelled over Lindsay to Jason, “I’m going to lay you out!” Lindsay said she was going to call the police and Manor said that was fine with him. Then the sand was moved down the alley by Manor and his worker. She repeated the “lay you out” comment several times.

Manor’s story: When Manor saw a bunch of sand in the back of some guy’s truck he assumed they were stealing it. That angered Manor and Manor told Jason he needed to pay him for that sand if he was going to take it. Jason started cursing at Manor and told him he wasn’t paying for (insert curse word here). He then continued cursing and said Manor was supposed to move the sand by the end of the day. Manor said he was there before 5:00 and said he’d move the sand. Jason told him how dirty the jobsite was. Manor said if he wanted to see a dirty jobsite he’d take him to one—that this one was clean compared to most. Jason yelled at him about getting sand in his potted plants. Manor told him he had two months to move any plants he thought might be in the way. Jason then starting telling him he owned the alley. Manor said he doesn’t and that the alley is a city easement. Jason said it’s not, said he had a plat map to prove it and got in Manor’s face. Manor then said he was going to shove the alley (or maybe it was his plants) up his (insert curse word here). Manor said he’d call the police and Jason said that was fine with him. Manor said the police would side with the person who was having their property stolen. Then Manor and his helper started moving the sand further down the alley.

After all of this drama I left a message with my contractor. He called this morning (Day 26) with yet a third story—that was basically the same, but in his story Jason threatened Manor with a shovel. I’m not sure I believe that, but I do believe both parties were anything but pleasant.

Manor called me to apologize a few minutes after I spoke with our contractor. When I told him I understood that Jason could be hard to take but that he couldn’t threaten my neighbors with “I’m going to lay you out” he said, “I never said that. I said I was going to shove the alley (or plants?) up his BLEEP.” I found that somewhat humorous.

Thanks to this mishap we now know the truth behind the infamous alley and who owns what. Lindsay was very neighborly and gave us their plat map which we then researched. We could see why they thought they owned part of the alley. On the plat it states that “one-half of the alley vacated at 1106 Fairmount” is part of the plat. “Vacated” is the key word. A City of Austin person returned our phone call and told us that the alley is owned by the city, but that the vacated alley is owned by Jason. That language doesn’t make sense until you look at the entire block’s plat map instead of the individual plat map. In the photo below you can see that the green part is the current alley (shared by four neighbors) and the yellow part is where an old alley used to be (before being resubdivided in the 1920’s). Jason owns the vacated alley. I recall being told about the block being resubdivided when we bought our house, but since the old alley didn't run into our property I never thought the info would be useful. I simply thought the plat person was having fun telling me the history of our block.

So there you have it. Jason doesn’t own the alley and hopefully his knowledge of that will prevent further problems. I’ll let you know what happens when I inform him of this.

Above: A photo of the evil pile of sand and another of where it used to reside (in the sunny spot in the second photo). Note that there are probably at least 50 pots of vegetables in Jason's front yard.

As for progress. Today the steel was delivered and they laid it all down in preparation for the foundation being poured Friday. Since I was told it’s not being poured until Friday my guess is they won’t be here tomorrow.

No photo of the overall garage today. I realize I need to move the banana tree so all of the "progress" photos don't look the same. Instead here are some shots of the foundation preparation. The evil sand is under the black tarp.