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Wrong house demolished by mistake in Texas neighborhood

Posted at 11:07 AM, Jul 19, 2013
and last updated 2013-07-19 11:21:12-04

FORT WORTH, Texas – A Big oops for a Texas demolition crew. They were told to tear down a home in a Forth Worth neighborhood. They did, but it was the wrong one!

Stephen Neumann was on his way to a charity fund-raiser early friday and couldn’t figure out what a demolition crew was doing to a relatively well-built home. “I just seen an excavator tearing that house down, and I was wondering why. It was a pretty good house. It wasn’t all that bad. When this one next door has been needing tearing down for years.”

Neumann says he thought perhaps someone was tearing it down to build a fancy new home, but that wasn’t the case. The city calls it a mistake.

The property set for demolition was at 9708 Watercress, but what was actually torn down was next door at 9716 Watercress. Code enforcement was at the demolished home taking pictures and getting new information in preparation for a meeting to discuss what happened.

But no one will talk to me on camera about the mix-up until the city investigation is completed. City officials have indicated that the property was vacant and public utilities disconnected before the demolition crew went to work.

Samantha FArmer feels it could be an understandable mistake. “Well, to be honest, all those houses up there have always been kind of, junky. So I could see how they’d get it mistaken for the wrong one.”

KTVT has not been able to contact the owner of the demolished property. But, the station reports the owner has a permanent home somewhere else.

It is expected the owner will be compensated for the loss.

Source – CNN