FROM AMAZON.COM WEB SITE
So you think your builder cut a few corners building your house? You ought to get a load of what happened to the Martin family of Cleveland. So out of plumb was their $350,000 drearnhouse that you couldn't even find a comer without a fisheye lens.Basically, this book is a 246-page rant against a three-headed monster: an incompetent architect, an indolent builder, and an utterly indifferent developer, each of whom blamed the other two for the defects that made a new house both unlivable and unsalable. Nor is this a tale of victimization of a couple of rubes. Both the author and her husband are sophisticated professionals - a psychiatrist and a physician - who took all reasonable steps to assure themselves of appropriate legal protections. Although the author's intense hostility toward her tormenters grows wearying at times, she succeeds in maintaining an admirable degree of suspense. The story soon evolves from a cautionary kvetch about shoddy construction into a compelling drama of litigation angst. Useful appendices provide sensible suggestions for avoiding pitfalls, both legal and literal. No would-be home builder who reads this book will be able to contemplate the project again without well-founded butterflies. (pub 1991)
--This text refers to the
Kindle Edition
edition.
So you think your builder cut a few corners building your house? You ought to get a load of what happened to the Martin family of Cleveland. So out of plumb was their $350,000 drearnhouse that you couldn't even find a comer without a fisheye lens.Basically, this book is a 246-page rant against a three-headed monster: an incompetent architect, an indolent builder, and an utterly indifferent developer, each of whom blamed the other two for the defects that made a new house both unlivable and unsalable. Nor is this a tale of victimization of a couple of rubes. Both the author and her husband are sophisticated professionals - a psychiatrist and a physician - who took all reasonable steps to assure themselves of appropriate legal protections. Although the author's intense hostility toward her tormenters grows wearying at times, she succeeds in maintaining an admirable degree of suspense. The story soon evolves from a cautionary kvetch about shoddy construction into a compelling drama of litigation angst. Useful appendices provide sensible suggestions for avoiding pitfalls, both legal and literal. No would-be home builder who reads this book will be able to contemplate the project again without well-founded butterflies. (pub 1991)
