In 1983 hundreds of workers broke a world record by building a 3-bedroom home in just the short time of 3 hours. Later it was sold to members of the public who were not told about home’s origin. The home was an instant nightmare and things started going wrong in a very short space of time for its owners.
What started out as a light hearted publicity stunt ended in tears for some people. To show off the talents of San Diego’s lagging construction industry, a house building contest was organized in October 1983. Two teams of 300 workers constructed two, three bedroom houses in the record breaking time of 2 hours, 52 minutes and 31 seconds.
The stunt gained brief worldwide TV coverage but as quickly as the houses had been built the stunt was soon forgotten about. For those 2 families who unknowingly bought these homes, the matter is not just as easily forgotten and far from humorous.
One of the homes that took under 3 hours to build was sold to a couple for $90,000. Angie Van Gaasbeck the owner of what she thought was her dream home said the problems soon started after they purchased the house in May 1984 a couple of months after the competition. On their first night there the water pipes burst, flooding the bathroom.
The slab the house sits on was uneven and cracked from each end. Angie made claims of Poor grading and workers using quick drying concrete that was poured while still extremely hot. Other problems included a flawed roof, mismatched paint, buckled walls, crooked doorframes, a back yard that floods with every rain and a faulty sewer that causes unpleasant odours to waft into the house only to name a few.
The families have said they received numerous promises from the construction company that all of the houses’ defects would be corrected, but more than two years after buying the houses, they say, many serious flaws still remain.
It is a great loss to those families and unfortunately they never did receive any kind of compensation for the homes they had been sold. One thing we can take from this is that even though not all of us take part in competitions, sometimes rushing a job can happen in any industry and the consequences you see in this article are down to a rushed job.
Take your time, be prepared, have the correct tools for the job and finish the job properly!
