High winds and heavy rains in Melbourne were in the news as TV film crews showed flooded streets and trees down on family homes.
One of Melbourne’s better known solo acts had his home inundated after a massive pine tree crashed through the roof in the middle of the night.
SES crews came and cut up the tree and tarps were strung over the gaps on the roof and all seemed OK.
However then came the water through the wall cavities as the gutter guard previously installed funnelled back into the home and sent the water with it.
A late night call to a nearby gutter cleaning company had the gutter guard fixed within an hour and the home remained dry after that.
While the gutterguard installation was fast and the gutter cleaner also fixed most of the other defects on the roof, to clean up the soaked floors took the best part of a week, we can happily report that, our artist was back playing a gig in Fitzroy the following night.
Gutterguard is great when it comes to keeping leaves out of home gutters, but of course it is no match against the full force of a falling pine tree in the middle of the night.
The most interesting part of the story is that a human skeleton was also found in the middle of the lounge of the home after the pine tree crashed through the roof and ceiling.
It is thought that a dead body had been lodged in the tree for many years and no one had known about it.
The skeleton was last seen in a chair in a nearby back yard.
In another relevant twist, pine trees are not native in Australia and the musician had wanted the tree removed previously.
However his local council refused to allow it and threatened to jail the man if he tried to remove the tree or poison it.
He got legal advice in regards to suing the council for damages arising from the tree taking out his roof and gutters, but was told not to bother.
It wasn’t that the claim didn’t have merit, but rather that the courts in Melbourne are so corrupt that he’d probably get nowhere.
The muso’s name isn’t mentioned here because he asked us not to. He didn’t want any more grief with his local council bylaws officers, whom he thought might falsely accuse him of chopping down the relevant pine tree that they had described as being “significant”.
They also defined significant as meaning “you will notice it if it goes missing and not necessarily meaning it is any good”.
Moral to the story is that if you are building or buying a home in or around Melbourne, Victoria, Australia make sure that you don’t have any big trees overhanging it.
This is because you will probably not be allowed to chop it down to keep your family safe and if the tree does come tumbling down, you will have no one to sue for damages.
