The best-laid plans often go awry. That’s at least the long and short of the old adage. So either the demolition crew in the following video taken in Baltimore over the weekend are geniuses with really bad luck, or their plan wasn’t so solid to begin with.
We all make mistakes. Some of us get randomly locked inside CVS Pharmacy. Or perhaps watch an entire movie thinking its a totally different movie. These things happen. Of course, for stuff like that, there’s a lot less paperwork. But when the city inspectors of Baltimore deemed the three-floor rowhouse at 212 E. Fort Ave. unstable, emergency crews were only contracted to tear it down. They weren’t supposed to take Laundry Mutt, the abandoned pet store next door, with it.
Demolition Crew Destroys Wrong Building (NSFW Language)
Well that’s embarrassing.
A spokeswoman for the Baltimore City Department of Housing said, “If a property presents an imminent danger, Baltimore City will take whatever action is necessary to protect the public, including emergency demolition. Precautions are always taken with adjacent properties, in this case ensuring that it was unoccupied.”
So at least there’s that. The destruction of an innocent bystander building without a single fatality is always good news. Plus, Joseph Rene, the owner of Laundry Mutt, was pretty cool about the whole thing. Heck, he was practically helplessly optimistic, saying, “We’ll rebuild it” and “we have no other option.” That’s…good?
The moral of this story: if you plan to renovate an old pet shop and spend $160,000 purchasing the property as Rene did, make sure it doesn’t reside next door to a rickety old house capable of taking it down with it.
h/t Uproxx
