GPS Blamed After Crew Demolishes The Wrong House
One Georgia family is understandably distraught after the house their father built by hand was demolished without warning by a crew that says they were given GPS coordinates rather than an address. The home was currently empty — but contained irreplaceable heirlooms.
"We had heirlooms in there…my mom's dining room set…her hutch with her dishes in there," the homeowner told WSBTV.
The demolition company said it had paperwork.
"I said, ‘Paperwork for what?' and he said, ‘For the house, to demolish the house.' I said, ‘I'm the owner of the house, I haven't given anybody any authority to demolish this house,'" said [the homeowner]....
"I said, ‘What address did you have?' and he said, ‘They sent me some GPS coordinates.' I said, ‘Don't you have an address?' (and) he said, ‘Yes, my GPS coordinates led me right to this address here and this house was described,'" said [the homeowner].
[The homeowner] said he suspects the intended target was actually across the road.
The report also said that about a month ago the power box had mysteriously been removed and holes punched into the walls. They thought it was vandalism at the time, but now think that the company was preparing to demolish the house.
Guess there's still something to be said for an address and a map. Oh, and maybe a photo of the house would have helped, too.
Homeowner Says Crews Demolished Wrong House [WSBTV via Consumer Reports]
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Comments:
GPS is really replacing common sense. I had a guy try to come to my office, and while he was from the area, followed the GPS's instructions to head into Downtown Crossing (not South Boston) instead of using his brain and going over the bridge into South Boston (where he was from).
And don't get me started on my parents getting lost everytime they come to my house even though they have GPS.
Wow, how awful. What a shame they lost all those priceless family heirlooms. That company must be mortified at the mistake they made.
Didnt this happen to Bugs Bunny once? The correct response can only be "Of course you know, this means war!"
I wonder what type of GPS unit they were using, because if it cost anywhere under $200, it likely only gives an accuracy of about 20 feet. On a day with bad satellite reception, this can be make far, far worse. Hell, on a bad enough day, even an expensive Trimble unit could become fairly inaccurate.
There's something to be said for having an address that can be physically checked. Hope these people sue the ever-living hell out this demolition company.
Someone is about to get sued into oblivion...
@SybilDisobedience: If by mortified you mean preparing for a huge lawsuit then yes they are mortified.
How awful, did they have a permit for demo that covered the proper address based on the wrong coordinates??
And while I understand how helpful GPS can be, it seems to be taking the common sense out of following driving directions or even knowing which way is north vs. south.
Commercial (non-military) GPS is off by 30 feet. Assuming the coordinates were not dead center of the house, an error is easy.
@Quilt: My $65 GPS data logger will record me changing lane. The GPS navigation device is usually much less precise, tho.
I can't believe that the company hasn't said anything yet. What happened to damage control? What happened to taking it seriously?
@Fuzzy_duffel_bag: I'm waiting for the first story when someone drives into a body of water a la Michael Scott of the Office because the GPS told them to.
This is unbelievable....and I'm sure that shortcuts were taken. I would think that the demolition company would have to go the municipality to ensure the correct section, block, lot, etc. We use these machines to save us work, rather than using brains, common sense and good old fashioned work. GPS units are supposed to be an aid to travel, we can't check our brains into the glovebox! There's a railroad crossing in my county that is near a major highway entrance. Some dope a few years ago actually made a right-hand turn onto the friggin railroad tracks and claimed that the GPS told him to make a right....so he DID. (Geeez, that road looks like tracks, but since the GPS says to make a right, that's what I'm doin!!). Barely got out of the car in time, commuter train hit the car causing $100K damages to the train - which they are suing the driver for, and rightly so. Most folks driving nowadays have no business doing so.
What a terrible story, but I have to wonder did they verify that any furniture was in the house?
Wow... just... wow...
I wonder how this will work out? I have a co-workers whose neighbors purchased a foreclosure from the bank right as it was foreclosed. Problem was... the bank forgot to tell the "we'll clean it out for you" company, who went in just after they started to move in, and hauled away all of their (boxed up) possessions.
@jdmba: Not true. Most GPS (except for cheap consumer models) is augmented with data correction to make it much more accurate than that.
Oh, but they had to do it; they were just making room for the new hyperspace bypass.
I hear the plans had been filled and were freely viewable at the main office on Alpha Centauri...
What an awful thing to happen.
Glad nobody was at home, sleeping, perhaps hard of hearing... :-P
Depending on the size of the companies involved, I wouldn't be surprised to see them simply file bankruptcy and the family will get nothing. The owners of course will reform another corporation and they will go on their own merry incompetent way.
@OMG? BigPapaCherry doesn't get it?: It's happened quite a few times, actually. It just usually doesn't get big headlines
What idiots. They should probably have their license revoked.
Is there such a thing as a demolition permit from the city? If not, perhaps there should be.
@joeblevins: What are you talking about? Just because the heirlooms were sitting in an empty house doesn't mean that someone didn't want it. They may not have done anything with them yet, or had another place to put them.
"This is a little case of an unmaintained residence. "
A "little" case?! What.
"The 'irreplaceable' heirlooms was 'crap that nobody in the family wanted' a week ago. But you know they want to get paid now."
OIC, you've seen this "crap" and talked to this family?
" but this family is going to try to play up the value of the crap in the house."
WHO FUCKING CARES? The house was just DEMOLISHED on ACCIDENT and it was FULL OF STUFF.
@edwardso: Why would it matter? They destroyed a house and various heirlooms. The house itself is valuable, even if it's considered that the heirlooms may have held no monetary significance (only sentimental).
@Quilt: It depends on your location. On the freeway, the GPS on my phone will show my lane changes in real time becasue it can calculate based on 9+ satellites at a time. In my apartment, it only gets 3-5 satellites and is usually within about 20 yards. If it only has 1-2 sats in view, it down to about 100 yards.
@joeblevins: You're kidding, right? They thought the first incidents were vandalism. If they filed a police report, the police might have thought it was simple vandalism too. Anyone looking into the windows could see that there wasn't anything to be stolen (like a big screen TV), so a simple and reasonable deduction would be it was just unruly people looking to destroy something.
There's no mention that they left the house unmaintained, nor is there any mention of how much the family treasured the items. For all you know, the parent died and the family was in the process of moving everything out, hence why there's no furniture.
The bottom line is that regardless of the circumstances of the insides of the house, the wrecking crew went to the wrong house and the company are responsible.
@joeblevins: Also, it does not at all matter what was in the house, if they actually wanted the stuff, what plans that they had for the stuff. It matters not at all. The only thing that matters is that the house was DEMOLISHED ON ACCIDENT.
@pecan 3.14159265: I was speaking more to the fact that many people who go through the destruction of a home inflate the value of the items in the home. I'm not saying they are definitely being dishonest, and they should be compensated, but it sounds a little off to keep precious items in an unoccupied house that they suspected had been vandalized a month before
@edwardso: It's possible they were in the process of moving the stuff out, or were making plans to but didn't have a place to put it yet, and we don't know if they upped the security once the "vandalism" was found out.
But it certainly doesn't matter either way.
Perhaps most distressing:
"Moore tried to contact the Texas company, but her calls have not been returned."
I can picture some frazzled exec hiding under his desk as the phone rings above him. If you don't pick up, they can't sue you!
@anduin: Depending on the financial state of the company they may go bankrupt and the guy will get nothing.
As for the GPS confidantes. The question is where did they get them from? My guess would be they got them from google maps using the address. The pointer probably didn't land on a house via the address, so they dragged the pointer over what they though was the correct house and used those coordinates.
GPS is fuzzy, but I suspect that the estimator/rep who made the initial visit, scoped out the project & wrote down the description & coordinates was the one making the original error. The sub-contractor knocked down the house as described.
Still, a demolition permit is required that ties to a property lot number. Is it possible to get a demolition permit on your neighbor's house?
Aiiieee, next thing we know, the Vogons are going to use something similar and come destroy Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass!!!
@OMG? BigPapaCherry doesn't get it?: My GPS took me down an access road in Illinois instead of the main drag...in the dark, on an unlit street...and kept telling me to make an immediate left...which, since it was an access road without guardrails, for the next mile or so would have been the Ohio River.
I wonder what the company is doing for the family in the meantime. Since they have no house to speak of I would assume they were put up in a very nice hotel. I can only imagine what the company will try to do to make things right, hopefully they really do take it seriously or they will likely be sued out business.
@Bob Lu: The civilian GPS system is designed to be off by as much as x feet. I don't recall what number x is. Military GPS is dead on accurate.
Actually, this was a local news story for me. The home owner actually takes care of this house a lot. Even to the point where he hired a landscaper to maintain the yard.
He found out about the house getting demolished when the landscaper gave him a call at work and said, "uhhh, someone is destroying your house."
I don't even know what to say. That is beyond insane.
How in the hell can you demolish a house based on GPS coordinates? I don't see any possibility that you could get "paperwork" for such a job without an actual street address. I see no chance of that happening at all.