“Hands up anyone who appreciates being awakened from a deep slumber at around midnight – on a week night.
This has been our experience for two weeks in a row now, with the building site in our neighbourhood on Great North Road.
What on earth needs to be delivered at midnight that cannot be delivered during working hours?
We are rudely wrenched from deep sleep by the sound of large construction vehicles roaring down the street, the metal bucket’s fixtures clanging loudly in the quiet night air, then we hear how the delivery is heaved off, the driver shaking the truck’s bucket to empty it out – with the loudest clanging of metal.
Then the site staff shout instructions at each other, the truck noisily drives off the construction site and roars off down the road again.
Silence ascends after an hour of noise and the neighbourhood can go back to sleep – if possible after such a disturbance!
Having a very busy construction site in the middle of a residential area, is not fun.
We had to endure clouds of dust settling on our houses, inside and out, when the site was cleared of the 40-year-old houses; power outages because the construction staff has no clue about where they are digging trenches and hit the power lines with an ensuing explosion of sparks and flames.
Then, the water supply is cut off without warning – again hitting the water pipes without caring where they dig or otherwise, to install new water-meters/pipes.
Oh, and as if that is not enough, we feel like we are living in an earthquake zone as the house rattles and the windows shake to the point where you feel it is all going to come apart – due to the construction site compacting the ground for the driveway.
The neighbourhood did not ask for this abuse – we, in fact, appealed against the construction of yet another fast food outlet, but we were shot down by the Big Man – they will build it because they can.
So we’ve had to say farewell to our quiet little neighbourhood as we are invaded by strangers on a daily basis, our streets is filled with strange cars every night visiting the other new eatery (which the neighbourhood was not even informed of before they commenced construction).
Coming home to peace and quiet after a long day’s work is but a distant memory.