A monstrosity in progress.
A new trailer park popped up overnight for all of the TV people's trailers and campers for some of the crew.
The folks from the TV show Extreme Makeover have been in our little town the last two weeks building a home for a veteran who suffered a brain injury during a road-side bombing. He has PTSD and was in therapy in California for the PTSD before all of this started. The TV show apparently took him out of his therapy so they could send him on "vacation" so the show could film the family together.
I have seen this show a couple of times and all the while thought it was a good thing and was charitable work but seeing these folks up close makes me think otherwise. A lot of folks in our little town are extremely concerned about the house they are building and the things they are doing to the family.
This family, a husband, wife and two kids were living in a 1500 square foot home and the show is building them a new home of 4700 square feet, including a swimming pool. The family was having a hard time paying their $600 a month rent and now they will be living in this monstrosity that will cost them that much just in utilities each month, not to mention the taxes and insurance costs.
The show is setting this family up for failure and it's dispicable. The veteran that has PTSD doesn't like and can't be around large open spaces or a lot of noise without it affecting him so what did they do? They built him a huge house with a "theater room".
Keep in mind the show builds these houses in just one week and they started from scratch on this one. The land was donated, they dug a hole, formed and poured the basement and started building before the concrete ever had a chance to cure. The show has been advertising for volunteers to donate the time to help in construction and some of the people who actually work in construction and did volunteer their time did not go back after a few days just because of the shoddy work that was being done.
Can you tell I'm a little upset? This is at least a $300,000 home if not $400,000 and they are trying to build it in a week for someone who the house itself will drive crazy. The show doesn't appear to have any consideration for the veteran at all.
And if that wasn't enough, our town has a little country club with a golf course and one of the Kansas Senators showed up to take a tour of the club house becuase the show was going to have a dinner this Sunday for some of the volunteers. Once they had their tour they started demanding that the owners paint the walls and get new furniture and and make several other costly changes because the senator was going to be there and it will be shown on TV. The manager of the club was shocked and didn't know what to tell them. I on the other hand, could have thought of plenty of things to tell them and most of the words could be spelled with four letters!
I to have seen that show a few times. Could never figure out how you could build anything in that length of time and especially with all those folks running over each other. I always thought that quality had to be sacrificed on that show.
ReplyDeleteHow they expect the Vet to keep up with the responsibilities that come with a house that size is insane. The taxes and insurance not counting the increase in utilities will only place more burden on this family. Cannot help but think this will only cause more problems in his road to recovery.
If I had any say about a mealy mouth politician visiting my country club or city faciility they would be the ones that would be paying just to be there! That will be Cash Only, No Checks Accepted!
My thoughts are with the injured Soldier. May the Gods smile upon Him and his Family. Lord knows he will need it!
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ReplyDeleteI can see your point of view! I wonder how they going to afford the property tax, and utility bills for this big house. It just a TV show, you won't see the real story behind curtain, until you see the real life event. My wife have told me that, there's a lot of people in this show have lost their house, after a few months. I think this TV show will do more harm to this family then good.
ReplyDeleteYes but just think of the excellent TV ratings they will get and all that revenue from advertising!
ReplyDeleteAll sounds quite pathetic really... It will probably cause the poor fellow and his family more harm than good in the long run as Q has pointed out.
We have this show in Germany as well, and I've always wondered how they evade our construction laws - the stuff looks crap even on TV. Not to mention they throw things away that mattered to the families. One of them dared to speak up in a large newspaper that most of their books had been gone. Now, what bloody idiot throws away BOOKS just because they think their fancy art on the wall looks better?
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