Vancouver Condo Info

Want to make your lawn look lush and green all year round?

A Stockton man sees the growing number of dead brown lawns of foreclosed homes in the area and sees nothing but green.

Nick Terlouw has launched the Greener Grass Co., which amounts to a service in which he sprays dead lawns with a deep green, water-based dye that makes the turf look good enough for a golf course or a professional football stadium.

For between $175 and $225 per yard, Terlouw uses a motor-powered 50-gallon insecticide sprayer designed for treating orchard trees. He waves his magic wand and in broad sweeps, a la painting a house, makes tired, if not expired, turf sit up and sparkle like Shirley Temple.

Full article here.

You’ve seen them all over Vancouver, from green mesh covered buildings in fairview to plastic shrouded condo towers downtown.  But what’s it like to actually live in leaky condo thats being repaired?

A renter in Yaletown has started blogging about life in the green mesh: The Leaky Condo Chronicles is an interesting read about the inconvenience and frustration of living in an active repair zone:

Buzzing, vibrating, grinding noise jolted me awake at 8 AM. It’s really too bad that earplugs can’t block out the vibrations — they’re worse than the noise…

I think today is worse than ever before. They’re grinding down the concrete of the balcony right next door to us.

Mondays tend to be particularly bad anyway, probably because weekends are so nice and quiet, but I do think it’s true — it can’t get any worse than this — can it? Can it?

I need to run away.

You can find more misery at leakycondolife.blogspot.com

Another condo repair shot for the gallery, this one sent in by ‘anon’ who includes the following note:

This townhouse is on the corner of 7th and Vine in Kitsilano. This is a shot of repairs happening at the back and on seventh avenue. Currently the front of the building on Vine street looks much clearer, not sure if they’ve already done repairs there or if they’re still upcoming. This building also has addresses at 2302, 2304, 2306, 2308, 2310 & 2312 Vine Street.

Send your tarp and scaffolding covered condo repair photos in to vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com for inclusion in the photo gallery.

This unit in the building located at 960 west sixth avenue looks a bit like its got a shower cap on.. As if its just gotten out of the bath and is getting ready for a night on the town.

Send your tarp and scaffolding covered condo repair photos in to vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com for inclusion in the photo gallery.

The fairview slopes has its fair share of leaky condos judging by the number of photos sent in. This shot from the batch that kingleaky sent in a few weeks ago is located at 948 West 7th Avenue, right in the heart of Fairview.

Send your tarp and scaffolding covered condo repair photos in to vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com for inclusion in the photo gallery.

update: here’s an additional close-up shot sent in by Doug R:

This is the backside of a development on west 7th ave, the ‘Casarosa’. Once the scaffolding and green netting is removed this is the side that will have the good view of downtown (unless that mushroom studios building in front is developed into something taller).

Photo credit to ‘kingleaky’. Send your tarp and scaffolding covered condo repair photos in to vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com for inclusion in the photo gallery.

Ah, the Granville Island Village. This condo development is looking a little shy, hiding from the rain this winter under a clean white sheet of plastic sheeting. This development is across the street from the previous post and was also submitted by ‘king leaky’.

Got a shot of a condo undergoing repairs? Send it in for the condo repair gallery to vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com

‘king leaky’ sent in a batch of condo repair pictures from Fairview, a neighborhood particularly hard hit by the leaky condo debacle.  I’ll be posting the others over the next couple of weeks, This first one is located at 1350 west sixth avenue and looks sort of majestic with its soaring scaffolding.

Ahoy there! This building at 1201 Lameys Mill Road has great views out to false creek near Granville Island and a somewhat nautical / pirate theme to the way its scaffolding and tarpaulins drape. Going by the name ‘Alder Bay Place’ these condos use a mix of traditional Vancouver green mesh and white tarps.

send your leaky tarp covered condo pictures for the repair photo album to: vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com

Asun sent in this shot of the residential tower at 1188 Richards currently under the leaky condo raincoat. Apparently this building was constructed with rainscreen technology.

The most recent info I can find on these apartments is in this post on pricetags from september:

on the matter of whether the designers and contractors of 1188 Richards have paid for the repairs, the answer is… not yet. Legal action is being initiated, which involves restoring many of the entities involved to the provincial corporate registry as they were evidently dissolved to try to avoid liability. I wouldn’t anticipate a settlement until the $8 million job is pretty much complete.

So its not just woodframe and stucco buildings that have water problems, concrete towers leak as well, and they’re expensive to fix.

send your leaky tarp covered condo pictures for the repair photo album to: vancouvercondo.info@gmail.com