Nail households are not uncommon in our fast-growing country with rapidly evolving infrastructure, often due to the need for urban renovation, and some old residential areas located in the city center need to be removed to improve the appearance of the city. Nail households refer to those residents who are unwilling to move to the new residential area due to dissatisfaction with the conditions given or other reasons during the demolition. However, in a highly developed country like the United States, there is also such a nail household, although the owner died, but the building still exists, and it is surprising that the old lady left the property to the developer.
First, refuse to demolish and force commercial centers to take a detour
Generally speaking, the so-called nail households in our cognition are nothing more than greed for profits, and as long as the government gives enough weight, even the firmest nails can be removed. But no one would have thought that in the highly developed economy of the United States, there would also be such a nail household, no matter how attractive the conditions given by the government, and resolutely did not move, until her death did not leave the old house where she lived all her life.
At the end of a few years ago, a netizen with the id Yao Hongen posted an article on the Internet called "There Are Nail Households in the United States", telling the story of an old lady living in Seattle. Such behavior undoubtedly shocked and did not understand the Chinese netizens who learned of this matter, so the hostess of the house, an old lady Maysfield, triggered extensive discussion and speculation in China.
For this matter, many netizens commented: "We have seen all kinds of demolition news, and we are a bit unfamiliar with such demolition news; what happens between developers and nail households is not uncommon, but this matter in the United States is really a bit rare." ”
After a period of investigation, we can find some clues about this matter from some US media reports. First of all, this is the nail house building, located on 46th Street northwest of Ballard in Seattle, in the northwest of the United States. This small house was built in 1900 and has a history of more than a hundred years.
Edith Maysfield has been living here since 1952, a small two-storey farm house with a floor area of only about ninety square meters, and the decoration and construction conditions are not ideal.
In 2006, a developer proposed to build a new five-storey building in the area of the house for commercial use, so he asked Mrs. Maysfield to demolish and buy her land to facilitate the smooth progress of subsequent construction works. After valuation, in fact, this old house and its land are only worth more than 100,000 US dollars.
However, what the developer did not expect was that the hostess, Mrs. Maysfield, was very persistent about the relocation, saying that she would not move anything, and became a real nail household. At first, the developers thought it was just the old lady who wanted more money to spend her old age, but they kept raising the price until the one-million-dollar old lady, who was seven times the price of herself, still refused to let up, and they realized that they were wrong.
Mrs. Maysfield, who was 84 years old at the time, was born in Oregon and moved north to Seattle decades ago largely to care for her elderly mother. With the passage of time, the former residential area has completely changed, and now this area is not far from a garbage disposal plant, and every day there is a noise of garbage trucks coming in and out, and sometimes you can smell some strange smells. Not only that, but it is also a traffic accident-prone area.
For these reasons, the old neighbors have also moved away or passed away, and Maysfield has become one of the few remaining residents in the area. According to the old lady, the area now "not only does not have a real neighbor, but also does not have a single family." However, despite this, the old lady was reluctant to move out of here.
In an interview with P-I in Seattle, the old lady said:
"I don't want to move, I don't need money, money is nothing. This is my home and I live happily... I don't want to move out. ”
Second, from refusing to compromise with developers to becoming friends
It is not realistic to persuade the old lady, but the developer also has no right to forcibly demolish the old woman's house, which is not in accordance with the law and violates human rights, and the developer has to give up. The Seattle government, on the other hand, sees this as a private feud between developers and owners, and they have no intention of intervening.
In desperation, the developer's compromise was to modify the original architectural drawings and architectural plan, choosing to build a concave five-storey commercial building surrounded Mrs. Maysfield's house on three sides. Soon after, the developer's construction team began construction around the old lady's house.
The construction team surrounded the old lady's house, drove all kinds of large construction equipment, including cranes, excavators, etc., and scaffolding was everywhere. It is said that the nearest place is only one or two meters away from the old lady's kitchen window, and the hook of the big crane is still working on the roof of the house every day, which looks very dangerous.
However, these still cannot constitute a reason for the old lady to move out of the house, and in the face of the unbearable noise of ordinary people every day, the old lady still goes her own way and still lives normally at her own pace. She said:
"I'm someone who lived through World War II, and this noise is nothing."
The only difference was that she turned up her voice a little bit louder while listening to the opera at home. This also seems to be in line with the Seattle Times report, which said: The old lady has been very stubborn since childhood. However, this stubbornness seems to have also led her to form a special friendship with the developer's people.
Seeing such a strange and interesting old man for the first time, the construction workers are naturally careful to minimize the impact of construction on the lives of the elderly. The person in charge of the construction site also specially advised every worker to treat the old lady well. Mrs. Maysfield herself is of course very sensible, and she tries to go out as little as possible every day, just staying at home listening to music and watching TV.
And it is the emergence of such a harmonious situation, the developer and the nail household, the two originally incompatible existence, actually have a wonderful fate. Barry Martin, an executive at the developer's firm, became friends with Mrs. Maysfield. Talking about this friendship, Barry Martin himself found it interesting.
"I gave her a business card and told her to call me if she needed anything. One day, Maysfield called me and said that she wanted to cut her hair, and I drove her over, and the second time I took her to the doctor... And just like that, we became friends. ”
Since then, he has undertaken part of the tasks of the old man's life. At first, he just passed by every day, and then spent ten minutes taking care of the old lady. After that, he began to take on the responsibility of washing clothes and eating three meals a day. One day, he even took him to a brand new denture.
It wasn't until the spring of 2012 that the stubborn old lady was diagnosed with cancer and soon died in the house where she had lived all her life. Her friends said she had finally made it happen, and she had said many times that she wanted to end her life at home, on the couch where her mother had died.
She has no relatives, and after the death of her old mother, her only son also left her at the age of 13 due to illness, so it can be said that Martin was the one who accompanied her through the last days of her life. To this day, when it comes to this friendship, Martin is still speculating about what made the two of them friends, and it seems that the old lady's behavior seems to be "always driving people away."
"I think it could be that we're too similar, and I'm just as stubborn as she is, and we have a lot of incredible agreements," Martin said, "and, she's amazingly smart." ”
Third, the nail household finally has a fairytale ending
In the end, even Mrs. Maysfield's funeral was planned by her last friend, Martin. The funeral was all held in accordance with the wishes of the old lady, who did not like flowers and did not like to hold it with great fanfare, and Martin did it all. In addition, the old lady also wanted to have her own privacy, so the location of her cemetery was still known only to Martin.
In the old lady's will, she also gave the house and all her life's inheritance to Martin to thank him for his careful care and meticulous care in his last period.
However, how to deal with the house really made heir Martin difficult, and the condition of the house was not optimistic, and the whole building had been clearly tilted to one side.
"Every time I come, I have to put the paintings in the room right again, and maybe one day the house will gradually go to the end of being torn down." Martin said so.
However, Disney, the producer of "Flying House", discovered this small house at this time, and they found that this house has many similarities with the story of "Flying House". As a result, the roof of the old house was tied with colorful balloons by Disney's promoters, which made people feel like they were in a cartoon, and also paid tribute to the old lady.
Such an interesting and meaningful move was naturally widely publicized, and many moviegoers also mentioned the small house in the film review, one of whom said: "We also have a log cabin here that resists the expansion of the city——— the old lady of Maysfield, who rejected the developer's million offer, even though her house is surrounded by five-storey buildings." ”
Later, a real estate company owner, Reg Pinault, contacted Martin, and the two parties sold the house for $310,000. Subsequently, Pinault remodeled the old house and developed a new project using its particularity, which he named "Square of Faith".
In this square, where everyone can spend a few hundred dollars on a brick, you can write everything you want to write on it, and the tile will be kept here for a long time. And for $75, you can write your and your family's name on the wall of the house, which quickly became popular with many people.
In the end, the original stubborn nail household has a happy, fairytale ending, and the old lady of Macfield will probably be satisfied with this way of handling it.