Living next to The Block would be pretty awful, with armies of tradies and camera crews invading your street every day, along with busted pipes, constant power tool noise, and the sound of amateur renovators crying because Shaynna Blaze was mean about their retro-minimalist-Scandustrial-Great Gatsby-inspired powder rooms.
Apparently, though, living next to Block winners is no picnic either. Neighbours of last season’s winners Darren and Deanne Jolly are reportedly furious with the pair, after they bulldozed a heritage-protected early 20th century house in the leafy Melbourne suburb of East Kew without obtaining the proper permission.
Tiny dictator Dea and ex-AFL player Darren won close to $1 million when the last season of The Block wrapped up in April. They bought the heritage house for an undisclosed amount of money in the middle of this year, obtaining a partial demolition permit that required the front facade and roofline to be maintained.
In late September, though, bulldozers came in, and demolished the entire house and its gardens. Per reports in Fairfax, neighbours are now furious, claiming that Darren and Dea are attempting to use their celebrity status to get around the approvals process, and that house prices in the street could suffer if the heritage value of the area is ignored.
The council have launched an investigation into how and why the demolition took place, however, in a letter applying for retrospective approval, obtained by Fairfax, Darren claimed that he chose to knock the facade down because it was unsafe:
“I decided to take down the remaining parts of the house because it was too unstable and unsafe to stay there. As we have seen over the last couple of days how strong the wind has been and to leave the remaining house in the condition it was would have been extremely dangerous to myself and my neighbours.”“As the builder for this build I’m obliged to warrant this house for years to come for the lucky people who buy it from us, and after seeing how bad the condition of the house was in I wouldn’t have slept at night knowing what was left there was unsatisfactory and I couldn’t build the house structurally sound.”
Darren claims he’s kept tiles, bricks and windows from the demolished facade, and plans to build a replica. While all this is going on, Dea is presumably going door-to-door in the area, making sure nobody’s stolen her idea for seagrass wallpaper.
via Fairfax
Photo: Ryan Pierse via Getty Images
Photo: Ryan Pierse via Getty Images
