'Nuff Is E'nuff! (LynnK)

As so many important things do, it all started with the cats.

I wasn’t living in Coronado then, although I’d set up my P.O. Box here. Wishful thinking, perhaps, or a hint to the Divine. Anyway, no one could miss the derelict building hunkered down on a large piece of land across the street from the post office. A flophouse, in a community where tiny homes on postage-stamp-sized lots start at a million dollars.

You couldn’t miss the motorcycles, either, or the yelling, or the trash piled up in the yard, or the cats neatly grooming themselves on the window sills. But (I am told), an alcohol-afflicted absentee owner couldn’t care less about his property, and the town officials took no action. Not for years. But the same week I moved into the apartment complex next door to the flophouse, the troubled tenants were finally evicted. And while scrambling for a new place to settle, they left their cats behind.

One former resident, a gentle Viet Nam veteran still struggling with post-traumatic stress and the bottle, came back every day to feed the cats. When he found a place to live, he said, he’d take them there. I supplied him with cat food so he wouldn’t have buy it. After a few months, the cats were gone and so was he. I’ve no idea what happened to any of them. But I have become way too involved in their former residence.

The blighted flophouse sat deserted atop its multi-million-dollar plot of land for another couple of years. Plenty of people wanted to raze it and build a mansion or some condos. But turns out that the flophouse was constructed in 1906, which made it, in the eyes of some, an "historic" building. Around here, 1906 is nearly as historic as it gets.

Eventually, three local couples with a plan and come money bought the property, vowing to preserve and restore the building, transforming it into a posh bed-and breakfast. That’s when my own nightmare (and that of all my neighbors) began.

Living in a construction zone is never fun, but what can you do? We entered 2004 in a state of weary resignation as the demolition of non-historic add-ons began. Bang! Thump! Crash! Dust flew. Dirt and wood splinters settled over cars and lawns. Trucks rumbled in to haul stuff away.
It will soon be over, we told ourselves.

Then, long months of silence while the new owners drew up plans and got them approved. To accommodate an underground parking lot, the historic structure was to be lifted. And they’d add a two-story building that would look like individual bungalows. Narrow the street. Build a driveway. Go to Mars.

OK, they’re not going to Mars. We’re just wishing they would. Digging soon began under the house, and from that time on, none of us ever had a clean car. I could (and still can) look out my front window and see clouds of dirt billowing down the street. With windows open to catch summer breezes, I have to dust furniture a couple times a day.

And the noise! Work can’t technically start until after 7am, but the trucks show up well before that. Rattle! Clank! Squawk! Cement trucks are the worst. And all of them have that Backing-Up Beeper that is, I am sure, the most irritating noise on the planet. No matter what time I get to bed—I have always been a night-writer—I’m beeped awake by 7:15am. From them on, it’s clatter and hammer and grind and beep.

In late 2006, after months of preparation, they did in fact raise the building six inches. The picture shows them doing it. And except for some more digging and prep work for adding the bungalows, everything looks pretty much the same today. The noise continues unabated.

A few weeks ago, my weary resignation ran its course. Now I’m just plain cranky. In part that’s due to years of sleep-deprivation. But it’s mostly because of a newspaper article about the restoration of the building, which outlined the owners’ plans to lavish their friends with a free stay in champagne-drenched luxury when the B&B first opens next year. A celebration! Yay!

But what about their long-suffering neighbors, the ones who have endured the noise and the dirt and the lack of parking (construction workers grab up lots of spaces) since 2004?! No invitation to a luxurious night on the house for us? No champagne? Not even a free car wash?

So I’m having dark, evil fantasies. It’s 2007, and the B&B is officially launched. It’s 6:59am. The owners and their guest-friends are sleeping off a night of revelry. I pull up to the 1906 Lodge in a truck with a rumbling engine, squeaky brakes, and a really, really loud back-up beeper. And for the rest of the morning, I rumble and squeak and back up and beep.

Aw, who am I kidding? Renting a truck would be expensive. Besides, I can’t drive a truck.

But I could rent a leaf-blower . . .