Roof Of Demolished Cambridge Home Crushes SUV
CAMBRIDGE (CBS) -- A Cambridge woman got an unpleasant surprise Friday morning when the roof of an abandoned house crushed her parked car.
A contractor was tearing down the home on Cedar Street around 8 a.m. when something went wrong during the demolition.
"I heard it come down and when I came out this morning, the house was completely down and over the sidewalk and right on top of the car," car owner Anita Scheuring told WBZ-TV.
Scheuring says that when she came out this morning, she couldn't believe what she saw.
"Then I came out and found the roof of the house on my car," she said.
Scheuring says she often parked her 1999 SUV Nissan Pathfinder in front of the Cedar Street house which has been abandoned for years.
She also says she knew that her car was legally parked in front of the house and she thought she had parked a safe distance away.
"I did know they were going to do work this morning, but I had no idea that I would come out and find the building on my car," she said.
The excavator operator who only gave his name as Al says the house was in bad shape.
"I was in the back when it went by itself. I looked underneath and there was nothing there; inside the walls were all rotted. And the studs were only three feet high with nothing in there," Al said.
Michael Brandon is with the North Cambridge stabilization committee. He says the building was a potential danger to his neighbors like Anita.
"Fortunately she was not inside her car, but it's totaled now," Brandon said.
The contractor was hired to tear down the home to make room for new houses, but the Department of Public Works has shut down the project because it doesn't have the right signs to warn people about possible hazards.
Scheuring says she's going to work with the company and the city to solve the problem.
"I'm very concerned. I obviously need another car," she said.
The car was totaled, but fortunately there were no injuries.