The Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon has taken a construction firm to court over what she calls “extensive problems” at what she envisioned as a $2m eco-friendly dream home she had built in Vermont for her retirement.
Buckled siding, missing insulation, mold and an unfinished primary bedroom ceiling are among 47 issues found by engineers, contractors and Sarandon’s staff, according to a lawsuit filed against DeGrenier Contracting and Property Management in federal court in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Sarandon, 76, built the environmentally sustainable home on 45 wooded acres with meadows in Stamford, Vermont, near the Massachusetts border.
The English definition of sustainable – the minimum building density – would insist on 540 houses on that acreage.
She was cute in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
That’s all I’ve got.
So Susan was practicing for this as the villainous Victoria in Blue Beetle. Or is the fuss simply because the film’s just come out and she wants some advertising.
Ah the great and good must lecture us from their rural redoubts
IIRC Al Gore’s rural hovel burned so much electricity it literally was visible from space
Buckled siding
Best call in Capt. Potato!
Our house is older than I am, around seventy years old in fact. Our house doesn’t have any of the problems described in the quote. Doesn’t that mean that our house is more sustainable than hers is?
Every time I read another tale of an incompetent or crooked builder I become more impressed that people managed to build the pyramids. And, it turns out, probably with free labour not slaves.
Come to think of it, over the millennia would free labour tend to be preferred for construction, in contrast to mining, quarrying, and rowing galleys? I’ve never seen the matter discussed.
I understand that using slaves to build the pyramids was too expensive, dearieme.
So the pharaoh would round up the peasants when they were relaxing after the harvest and put those idle layabouts to good hard work.
Of course when the corvee was abolished in the 19th century, the Gyppo government borrowed money to pay for the Suez canal. The costs of the loans meant that the resulting taxes on the peasants were even more onerous than the corvee.
The articles I’ve seen on the pyramids concerned the workers’ village that archaeologists had dug up. The signs were that the workers were treated pretty well which is why the authors thought slave labour unlikely.
A 2003 piece: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html
2017: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/pyramid_builders_01.shtml
The Egyptians must have had good project managers, in contrast to Susan Sarandon’s builder. You need somebody to keep on top of things, as there are inevitably problems to solve. That probably goes exponentially for “eco” houses.
“mold” – always and everywhere the result of insulation for efficiency and sustainability.
Thanks for the info dearieme. Interesting to see the argument that the labourers owed service in kind to their lords and masters.
“the labourers owed service in kind to their lords and masters.” Well they would have had to pay tax in one way or another.
There’s a Blue Beetle film? They really are scraping the barrel. What next, Booster Gold? Detective Chimp?
Actually, I think I’d watch a Detective Chimp flick.