Construction Zone
There was nothing I could do about it. I knew that. Still, no one enjoys living upstairs from a construction site. Especially when the two dwellings in question share a common wall and the noise is so loud, you literally have to go into the stairwell to make a phone call.
When the drilling first started, I hoped the family who had bought the apartment was probably doing a little touch up work. Putting in a new light fixture or something. Happens all the time in this nation under perpetual renovation. It would have been nice if they had told us in advance they were going to be fixing up the place, but that wouldn’t affect the noise level.
When it went on for another day, then two, I went to check out the scene.
I saw a man talking on a cell phone. His body language had a bravado that could only be associated with the position of kablan – Hebrew for contractor or foreman.
I mustered up my best construction worker Hebrew. “So, you’re putting in a new kitchen, or…” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Guttin’ the whole thing,” he finished my sentence.
“Upstairs and downstairs?”
He managed a slight smile. This obviously wasn’t the first time someone had asked this question.
There was one more thing I needed to know. “Um, how long do you think it will take?” I asked, waiting in dread for the reply.
“Three months.”
Ouch. Because everyone knows that whatever a contractor in Israel says, multiply by a minimum of two. Or three.
The next morning, the drilling jolted me out of my reverie – and out of bed at 7:00 AM. I turned to wake my wife Jody, but she was already up.
“Do you think there’s a law governing how early they can start?” I said bitterly.
“What?” Jody mumbled, unable to hear me over the ongoing din. Yes, it was that loud.
We called “106”, the Jerusalem municipal hotline. The response was not encouraging.
“They can start as early as 6:00 AM,” explained Shmulik, the friendly but perfunctory clerk on the other end. “And they don’t have to stop until eleven at night.”
Despite the noise, it was hard to argue. After all, hadn’t we just done our own shiputz (renovation) a scant 4 years earlier?
“We could ask them to limit the work to certain hours,” I suggested. “Get a break in the middle of the day, maybe?”
Israeli law actually defines the time between 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM as “Quiet Hours.” Kids playing ball on the street are routinely chastised by napping neighbors. The same law applies to renovations.
“No…that would just extend the whole nightmare by another month.” I sighed.
The family that bought the apartment was, not surprising for Jerusalem these days, a New Jersey couple who weren’t planning to live there. So called “ghost apartments” – those that are left empty all year except for the Jewish holidays – are an increasing problem, particularly in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Netanya. They drive the prices of real estate up while contributing little to the local economy.
Indeed, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat recently mailed out a letter to some 900 absentee owners to urge them to rent out their apartments.
Our new neighbors hadn’t gotten the letter but, via a polite email, informed me that they were indeed planning to rent the apartment and did we know anyone who might be interested.
We did. Several, in fact. We put out feelers and now several of our friends are in touch with the New Jerseyians.
They say you can’t pick your neighbors. It’s small consolation for all the noise, but maybe in this case, we can.
Foto Friday – Inspecting the Pipeline with Chaim Daon
Filed under: Environment, Foto Friday, General, Profiles, coexistence
Chaim Daon is a welding inspector working on one of the country’s most important energy infrastructure projects: the natural gas pipeline. When complete, the gas pipeline – an extension of the El-Arish-Ashkelon gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel, which became operational in 2008 – will be able to transport up to 7 billion cubic meters per year, relieve some of our industries’ dependence on oil, help clean the atmosphere and give additional economic weight to our cold peace with Egypt.
The project, under construction for several years now, comprises hundreds of kilometers of pipeline with joins all along the way, so the work done by welding inspectors like Daon and his colleagues is crucial for keeping pipes intact and leaks at bay.
Daon – or Captain Caveman as he’s known by the Holyland Hash House Harriers, an international drinking and running disorganization (to which I also belong) – allows us a peek at what’s going on just a few meters below the surface…
The tender to build the pipeline was won by a foreign multinational and the teams working on the project come from all over the globe. They work by day…
And by night…
The pipeline is intended to serve Israel’s major industries, chiefly Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), which is in the process of converting its oil-driven power stations to natural gas. IEC noted in its most recent Environmental Report that since the introduction of natural gas in 2004, a carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by 11%. More information about the Gas Market Law and gas reform in Israel is available at the Ministry of National Infrastructures website.
Disgruntled homeowners
It’s said that buying or renovating a home is one of the most stressful times in life, right up there with the death of a loved one, moving houses and switching jobs. For the estimated 4,700 families in Israel affected by the bankrupt Heftsiba construction company, one can only imagine how they must be feeling, particularly those who lost their money and future apartments.
One disgruntled Heftsiba customer commented that while former Heftsiba CEO Boaz Yona has offered to give back NIS 4 million, that only comes to NIS 854 per family. Not a whole lot of cash-flow when your mortgage money is gone or you’re looking at unfinished walls and floors.
Clearly, homeowner and construction disasters happen in the States and Europe; look at the current foreclosure crisis in the U.S.; different in nature, similar in effect. But given the number of home renovations in Israel — a country with one of the highest homeownership rates, at 75% and higher — it’s unsettling to hear about the odd construction company that defrauds new homeowners, or the independent contractors who can make life extraordinarily difficult for the homeowner looking to gut their home, or carry out a partial renovation.
I’m thinking of friends who have been out of their home since last August and are suing their former contractor, while waiting for their house to be finished. Or my mother-in-law, who decided to renovate the apartment she’s owned since 1971, and which desperately needed some updating. Six months and two contractors later, we’ve got a missing kablan (Hebrew for contractor), lost funds, and a woman who’s really tired of living out of her kids’ homes.
Clearly, none of this is the end of the world, and the end of the renovation brings happy homeowners back to fab-o, like-new apartments. I’m also hoping that the former Heftsiba customers find a way out of their mess. As for my mother-in-law, and all the other post-renovation homeowners, they have to make nice to their neighbors and find a way to make them forget that they’ve been living in a construction zone for months on end…
Subscribe
Subscribe to Israelity via email:
Social Media
Categories
- A New Reality
- Art
- Blogging
- Business
- coexistence
- Crime
- design
- education
- Environment
- Food
- Foto Friday
- General
- health
- History and Culture
- Holidays
- Immigrant Moments
- Israeliness
- Life
- Medical Breakthroughs
- Movies
- Music
- Nostalgia Sunday
- Picture of the Week
- Politics
- Pop Culture
- Profiles
- Religion
- Social Justice
- Sports
- Technology
- Travel
- tv
- War
The Face of Israel Today
-
About Israelity
Free newsletter
Stories from ISRAEL21c.orgPopular Posts