RORY SALAZAR | Finance | Contact
A dilapidated structure that once housed a trio of twenty-something misfits has, as of this morning, been unceremoniously ripped to pieces by a bulldozer.
The demolished building holds strong sentimental value for former residents, Stocko, Wobbo, and Red Nut (legal names not provided), as during their tenure it was home to some absolute shindigs that always got wildly out of control.
“Last party we had, we actually tore the bathroom wall down ourselves,” Stocko told our reporter as he looked wistfully through the construction site’s security fencing. He gazed not upon a demolition site but a repository of beautiful memories of a misspent youth.
Despite the structure’s terrible condition, or perhaps because of it, the former housemates abused the house freely, and hosted the best parties in all of Betoota on a weekly basis.
“Remember the time that stray cat just started coming to our parties and ended up living with us?” Wobbo asked fondly. “Whiskers,” Red Nut smiled.
“Well, we ended up calling it Not-Whiskers because it didn’t have any whiskers and it couldn’t even do basic cat-stuff.”
“But it loved Catnip,” Wobbo added.
“We must have had a thousand parties in this dump,” Stocko said.
The Advocate considers that the term ‘dump’ seems to be an understatement. Reading the building’s recent inspection report, it is a fact that the structure was not only riddled with asbestos but also toxic levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, and even uranium were found throughout the structure’s piping, weatherboards, and roofing.
“Oh, remember the ‘stink pit’!” Wobbo laughed as he pointed to what appeared to be a large hole in the former living room floor. “Yea! The floorboards were so decrepit they rotted through, and we found a wide-open sewer main below.”
“God it stank!” Red Nut chortled.
“How did we live in such squalor?” Stocko asked, awe-struck, as he watched dozens of rats scurry out of broken furniture he used to store his pyjamas in.
“Dunno,” Red Nut replied.
“I’m just glad the landlord waited until we moved out before condemning the place. We were squatting, after all.”
