trampled part 4

April 1^st, 2017

i took most of the week off to give my mind a break. It is exhausting to live next to this project. My sleep cycles have been interrupted, the noise and vibrations make me light headed and dizzy, and i worry often about the integirty of my home and my quality of life. I also have 2 dogs to consider – 2 dogs who do not understand if there is a cloud of cement dust that they cannot go outside. 2 dogs who think when the ground shakes it is an earthquake.

I sit here, on a saturday night, and look out the window of the upstairs bedroom at piles of debris. Concrete, both in large chunks and smaller bits, is in many piles. Huge mounds of dirt. Giant orange construction signs, a herd of cranes, and many small earth movers and dumpsters and tarps. This visual aspect is new – new as of about january first, when the cranes were brought over to the lot across from my house. That day – i cried all day. I knew it was time. The work on this side of the project was about to begin and the house shaking would start soon. The culmination of 8 months of noise and irritation at that point.

Last summer, the project as a whole was irritating in many ways. It was noisy. Really noisy. We had all been told construction was a 7am to 330pm mon-fri kind of thing. Oh no.......the noise would start at 6am and often times go (like the jackhammering) until 10pm. AND it included saturdays. So many nights in the summer we could not open the windows because of the burning rubber smell. There were 3 weeks in a row where every night, starting at about 1 am and going until 4 or 5, there was this incredible engine revving sound. It would start out low, and run at that wave length for 10 or 12 minutes and then rev up 2 distinctly clear notches. I am not sure how to describe this in words – it was as if a car with a huge racing engine was revving up – there was idle (which was very loud) and then 2 distinct gear shifts that raised up the frequency of the sound, and each of those raises would last about one minute and then the noise would fall back to idle level. Night after night i could not sleep. When i complained to FORD land i was told it was normal operational noise......and yet in 5 previous summers i had never heard it.

Work inside buildings had begun, and would last all night long. We would walk the dogs after a night out – so maybe 12 midnight, and hear it. Loud bangs, what seemed like walls being knocked down, grinding noises. Because of the way the wind blows – they were often times louder around the corner from us, along donaldson, and i wondered if any of those people could hear them, or if they were bothered.

There was the week that a famous aerial photographer was hired to come document the site, and for hours each day his plane would fly very low and make that damn small engine airplane buzzy noise. It was loud and disruptive. It sounded like a huge bumblebee was stalking the area in loops – for hours each day.

I had stopped posting on social media because ONE – it was not helping. TWO – it had actually already caused me a lot of haters and ill words. And THREE – there was no point. I was the only salmon not swimming upstream. It was useless, and i knew the more i pushed forward the more likely it was that i would suffer worse fates with the city as a whole. (a dear old friend who had worked for dearborn city government had heard about the situation, and her first words to me were, "oh god – what have they done to you? Is your shop even still open?") So i found it somewhat funny when i was sent a private message about how on the largest city page for social media people were wondering if i had been paid off to be quiet about it all since i had not made a peep in months.....i chimed in a little and said no – i wish i had been, but i was not. I had simply realized that no one could see things the way i did and there was no longer any point in me trying to persuade them. That, like with most things in life, they would not understand or accept it until it happened.

Well it's happening now. That deck in the middle of the complex is currently taller than any other building we can see from our side. And that parking deck's clone is about to be built alond the edge of the park – right across from my house. Right across from all these houses. And when it is built, and no one likes it – it will be far too late to make any changes, or put in an extra 2 cents. It is already too late.

One final tidbit before i leave off about the whole last year and get to the daily or several times a week posts. There was an interesting issue on thanksgiving weekend 2016. that friday night, as we were about to go to bed, the house started shaking. The windows started rattling – really loudly. I opened the door to my florida room and the whole thing was buzzing and shaking. I could barely stand up because the frequency and vibration immediately set off my vertigo. It was 1245am. I called the police. The 943-3030 number. The dispatch officer told me she had no reports. I called back at 1am and was yelling at the police officer, who still told me she had no reports. I luckily did not swear at her too much, but i was so angry about this kind of volume and disruption at 1am on a weekend!!! on a holiday weekend – what the hell was going on?

And i called back at 130am. And i was told, "FORD land has reported a chemical spill. They are using a special vacuum truck to clean it up, and that clean up process with take at least another hour and a half". The officer sounded upset and nervous.

For real? A chemical spill? I wrote my neighbors and included the FORD land managers and joe vicari. Was this a hazmat situation? Did the neighborhood need to be informed? How bad was it? I also posted on a number of social media sites, and at 130am while yelling online about a chemical spill and the outrageous noise that was happening, i had people say snarky things to me about "well, better to clean it up now than wait till monday – why are you complaining?". WHY? Because my windows are rattling. Because my dogs are whimpering. Because i can't stand up straight and i'm about to throw up.

What did FORD land say? When they wrote back, and day or so later, they said it was "routine maintenance, and they were sorry the timing was so poor". For fucking real. And you know i'll never get an actual truthful repsonse as to what happened, because you can't go up against the world's biggest company and have any hopes of winning. And oh yeah – just a reminder – "we are not purchasing any properties or helping with any relocation costs on this job site or with this project."

you know – not a SINGLE news site would even talk to me about this. Not a one. Not even charlie leduff. No newspapers. No online sites. No neighbors who worked for newspapers......not even the metro times. There is just me – standing up to the world's biggest corporation. It's a pretty weird feeling to be so alone.