The digs

Life Among the Scrapers

By Shea Andersen, 3-23-06

	That pile of rubble? A former house. -photo by Shea Andersen

We awoke to the sound of large metal machines the other morning. And in any go-go Western city, you might expect to have construction noise be the backdrop to your morning rituals.

But more and more, I'm not seeing construction in my neighborhood so much as deconstruction. It turns out that as real estate values climb, it's better for owners of older houses (or investors therein) to simply walk away from the charming yet saggy structure they've purchased, and level the thing.

It's the West in the 90's, so of course there's a term of art for such houses: you call them "scrapers." And it's hard not to wonder, as the machines move about, if maybe you're living in one.

In the last six months or so I've seen four such houses go under the bulldozer's blade in a six or seven-block radius of my house. This is a neighborhood where houses trend to the older side -- the one I call home was put together in 1914 -- and some of them do indeed weather better than others.

There's nothing new under the sun about the concept. The trend was the subject of a fine feature by The Associated Press right here in Idaho late last year.

Nor should readers be hunting for a moral to this story. But like anybody who walks among a little bit of overzealous real estate speculation and destruction on a daily basis, I may get spooked by this before long. Sometimes people walk by our house and pause for a look. A long, speculative sort of look. And I used to think, 'Ah, they're admiring our home. I should probably get my muddy running shoes off the porch.' But now, I pause and wonder, 'Are they thinking about my house, or my lot?'

I've never felt so defensive of my old house I barely know.

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