Hunted a teardown

[Obsessive]

Spotted a house being demolished near where I work last week. Seeing the house in tact previously and judging from rhe majority of the neighborhood, I estimate it was built in the 40s or 50s

So after i got off yesterday i stopped by the lot. It was a bit rough still with half of it being a huge pile of scrape with dozers and back hoes parked on top. The other half was graded down a foot or so. I hit both best i could in the 45min I had to spare. Not much good did I find.. one toasted wheatie came up from under the grade. I may try to go back after work this week. How would you guys approach this? Hunt the scrape piles? The grade? The perimeter? I tried it all, albeit quickly.

I did find some bottles though. Too hot here today to be in the sun, i swear its like 82°. So i took an hour from my chores to clean these up...



Nothing special that i can tell, but definitely a bit of local history here.

 

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[trapperart]

Congrats

 

[diggingthe1]

You sure cleaned those bottles well. I tend to wander aimlessly around construction sites concentrating on where there are the most old signals. Good luck!

 

[Obsessive]

You sure cleaned those bottles well. I tend to wander aimlessly around construction sites concentrating on where there are the most old signals. Good luck!

Thanks! I used oxiclean powdered laundry detergent, because i had it. A wheel brush from my car wash bucket, and -dare i say- some really fine grade steel wool that id already worn down even more on some unremembered item. I was pretty impressed that they came so clean as well.

 

[skipper1]

I like those old bottles and your 82 degree weather. Sure wish it was that cool here.

 

[Obsessive]

I like those old bottles and your 82 degree weather. Sure wish it was that cool here.

Thanks. The weather is about the only reason that makes this area worth living in... today was back to normal temps in the mid 70's. But yesterday, which actually got up to almost 90 degrees, was a scorcher.

 

[Kurios1]

Love those sparkling clean old bottles. I hope you can score some coins that date back to the bottles or older. Worth a try as all construction projects have great potential for good scores.

 

[Obsessive]

Love those sparkling clean old bottles. I hope you can score some coins that date back to the bottles or older. Worth a try as all construction projects have great potential for good scores.

Thanks. Thats what I'm hoping for. Not sure what to do with all these bottles. Coins and pull tabs take up much less space.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

I hunt a lot of tear downs here and there's really no set formula for where to look that I've found. I just hit the whole place starting with undisturbed yard, especially around where the doors were, and where I think clotheslines may have been, and see what turns up. I dig a lot of broken cast iron pipe and tub parts and what seems like more nails than were used to build the house to begin with but clearing that out generally leads to some good finds. with then stripping a foot off of an area though they probably took any relics in that spot with it, so checking the heaps might be a good idea

I'd say you did pretty good on those bottles though, those embossed creams and milks could be desirable to local collectors and the fact they survived the dozer is pretty impressive. If the house was old enough you might want to probe the yard for privy pits....

 

[Davers]

Good Job.
Glass does take up space , I like the style of yours .

You got good advice on tear downs .
I just "Use the Force" on such sites.
+
Scrap brass & Copper pays well . (The small stuff ,Unless they give you permission to take larger pipes & wire.

Humidity Kills.....

 

[oldwormwood]

Nice finds. I'm curious - what is the protocol for getting permission to hunt those sorts of places? I assume it is privately owned. Or, as it is a demo site, does it not really matter?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Nice finds. I'm curious - what is the protocol for getting permission to hunt those sorts of places? ....

You're talking nameless faceless old-town demolitions, right ? (versus someone's yard or whatever, right ?) If so : The protocol is: You wait till after 5pm when the workers cut out for the day.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

Nice finds. I'm curious - what is the protocol for getting permission to hunt those sorts of places? I assume it is privately owned. Or, as it is a demo site, does it not really matter?

Most of the ones I hit are abandoned places that the city is knocking down and those are fair game to hunt. It never hurts to talk to someone on the demo crew though and usually they could care less if you go poke around after they're done.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.... usually they could care less if you go poke around after they're done.

Really ? Then you must be in a more laid back area than the parts of CA where I'm at. Out here, it seems you can ask till you're blue in the face, and only get the obligatory answer.

However, one time I recall asking, and the guy said "I leave at 5pm. What I don't see doesn't bother me. You didn't hear me say this" (with a wink wink). So.... we returned at 6pm, stepped over the yellow ticker tape, and went at it.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

Really ? Then you must be in a more laid back area than the parts of CA where I'm at. Out here, it seems you can ask till you're blue in the face, and only get the obligatory answer.

However, one time I recall asking, and the guy said "I leave at 5pm. What I don't see doesn't bother me. You didn't hear me say this" (with a wink wink). So.... we returned at 6pm, stepped over the yellow ticker tape, and went at it.

Yeah people down here don't much care what you do so long as you're not causing them any trouble.

 

[Obsessive]

No fences, no yellow tape, no posted signs. So I figured no one else was using it, so nobody would mind. If they did I would just politely excuse myself and hope to be on my way without any trouble.