Who can I hire to damage a wooden house?

What neighborhood is this in?

Although this is intriguing and a couple of half-formed ideas come to mind, I hesitate to share them as the issues involved with deceiving your local building authorities are too fraught. I'm sure this is frustrating from your perspective though. What is the basis for denying you permits to demolish/rebuild, and what does your attorney say?

Somebody tried this in our old neighborhood in DC with disastrous results. What I learned at an ANC meeting about the blight on our street was that after a longtime resident of the neighborhood died in the cutest cottage on the street, the new owner wanted to demolish the cottage and build a McMansion. Her problem was that new construction required greater setbacks (I think 8 or nine feet) than additions to existing construction, which had smaller setbacks grandfathered (I think maybe 5 feet), so she needed to classify her contemplated new construction as an addition to the cottage. She got plans for a giant addition to the cottage approved (2X the size of the cottage), laid the foundation, and then let termites destroy the original cottage, then claiming that she needed to demolish the cottage due to "casualty" or something like that. The neighbors on one side went ballistic and took great pains to make sure the city would not consider destruction by termites a "casualty" or whatever the legal term at issue was. We moved onto the street after this had been going on for a few years, and we were sure it would be resolved shortly thereafter. We moved off the street 4 years later, and there had been little progress. What made that situation particularly awful is that I think the new owner was claiming that someone in the city's building department had advised her to take that tack, so it wasn't clear whether there were any real wrongdoers there (except perhaps the nitwit city official whoallegedly suggested destruction by termites might be a way around the new owner's obstacle). It was a real mess, because the city wasn't about to admit one of its own had suggested the misguided approach.

Just allow Section 8 voucher-holding tenants.

We don't know if this is New York State, and we don't know who is turning down your plans. What you want is a variance to demo or to file an Article 78 proceeding if this is New York, and depending what kind of paperwork you've gotten back from the city/village/county at this point. Personally I'd go for a variance. What I would not do is behave in fraudulent ways, that's just never, ever a good plan. Plus you must have money to be considering demo, so you can hire the pros you need to do things the right way.

I cannot comment on which state the house is in.

In terms of the county denying the plans to demolish, they argue that the house must be almost falling apart before they can approve demolition. At present, the house is in a very poor condition and it is unlivable. If it remains in its current condition, it will probably fall apart in five years, however, I would like to hasten the process.

State? We need more detail than that - what neighborhood??

And in any case, if this isn't in New York State, we aren't interested. This board covers up to C0lumbia C0unty.

jamesco -- did you consult an architect or attorney experienced in this sort of discussion with the local authority? It seems you are going to have to contest the administrative decision in some way.

I have talked to an architect about it, but they suggest that I speak to an engineer to assess it.

In terms of damaging the house, do you have any suggestions on who I can hire or what I could do myself?

Any other suggestions on what I can do to damage a wooden house?

The dire wolf is 600 pounds of sin. Just sit in there for your supper and he will be grinning at your window ,just say "come on in. ". Then get outta' there and leave him.

Can it, Crazy

Or, you can give the antisemitic jerkoff ahart a couple of drinks there and light a match.

The match will do a much faster job on the perpetual off-gassing of an institutionalized aged groupie of sad tired 1970s suburban white rock combos who pretends to be an unknown clientless "music" publicist hack.

Or just stick to the topic at hand, which is New York residential real estate, not the Hopefully Dead.

Any update? Anyone read about a damaged wooden house in their local paper?