And the walls came tumbling down

Thursday, 8 Feb 2007 | Journal

About 4 months ago I moved in to this little apartment I currently call home. It was a great find and has been a nice place for me so far. But after I returned from Hong Kong, I noticed a crack in one of the bathroom tiles.

I figured somebody must have been dropping things on the floor a floor up, I notified the owner of the place and went on. But when looking through window, I remembered the patched up cracks in one of the building walls I can see from there. Wait, thats odd. So I opened my window and started inspecting the walls in greater details, as best as you from such a distance. Suspicions were confirmed when I walked over to the elevator to get a closer look from over there. There are cracks all over the place!

Lumpini Ville Phahon-Sutthisan, the official name of the building, was opened about a year ago and is already showing cracks in the walls. Wait, that sounds oddly familiar. Oh, thats right, the airport! You have perhaps heard about the brand spankin’ new Suvarnabhumi airport having cracks in the runway. Actually, thats not the only thing people are complaining about. But thats a story for some other time. My apartment building is falling apart!

And all this after I saw a show on Discovery Channel in Hong Kong of two buildings collapsing out of the blue. One of them started showing signs like cracks in the walls, but they were ignored or patched up just like the ones in my building. Ick. Thats no good. Ok, so when I lived in the Bijlmer there were also cracks in the walls but for whatever reason I had a lot more confidence in that structure than I do in this one. Then again, maybe these are just surface cracks. I don’t see how a bathroom tile cracking could be a surface crack, but still.

So, while I like living here, I’m not entirely unhappy about the fact that my 6 month lease is almost up. I might just want to start looking for a new place.