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I let out a special sigh of frustration that only someone this deep into a project could muster. I was holding up one end of a piece of crown molding, while I finished nailing the other end. This was my third attempt at this particular piece. The first time I’d measured wrong, and the second time I’d cut the angle in the opposite direction.
“Fine. Coming!”
I spit out the nails, then laid everything out so I could pick up exactly where I left off. The light up here was still abysmal, and the electricians were slacking. I made a mental note to chew them out as I padded down the stairs.
“Alright,” I grumbled. “What the hell is so important that—”
A sharply-dressed woman stood in the hallway, her hair pinned up tightly in a bun that was all business, no pleasure. She had one hand on a piece of a paper that my foreman was reading. As I reached the two of them, she swung it my way.
“What’s this?”
“This,” she said in a cold monotone she’d used a thousand times before, “is a stop work order.”
“A stop-work-what?”
“It means we can’t continue construction,” the foreman said. “At least, not until this is lifted.”
Lifted.
I squinted at the paper, which was filled with a thousand tiny words beneath two bigger ones: STOP WORK. I still didn’t get it.
“Why would I stop?” I asked the woman bluntly. “I have a building permit. It says—”
“Your building permit is precluded by this temporary order,” she interrupted without apology. “Until you fully resolve the list at the bottom here, you can’t do anything else.”
I followed her finger, noticing the list for the first time. The things listed on it made absolutely no sense.
“Demo permit?” I said aloud.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “There’s an open demo permit on this home’s garage from before your construction began.”
“But there is no garage.”
“No, apparently not,” she agreed. “It was removed years ago.”
“So why would I need a demo permit?”
“There’salreadya permit issued for the demo,” she explained calmly. “It just never got closed out. A town inspector should’ve come to confirm that the demolition was completed, and done to code, and at that point the permit would be closed.”
“And that never happened?”
“Unfortunately, no,” she agreed.
I shrugged. “Well the garage is gone. Go look for yourself.”
“I already have.”
“So you can close the permit?”
The woman laughed as if I were trying to be charming. “Oh no, Mr. Venturi. I can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“Because you need to make an appointment with a town inspector. They’ll have to come verify that—”
“Butyou’rea town inspector!” I threw up my arms. “Aren’t you?”
“Why, yes.”
