A husband and wife walk into a 96-year-old house . . .

No joke. When touring a vintage, attached, brick row-house on a landmarked block in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx with my clients, we were all predictably concerned about a noticeable dip in the ceilings and slope of the floors at the rear of this house on all three levels. The cause of our concern was found in the basement where we discovered that the rear twelve feet or so of the structure’s 12”-square solid timber central support beam seemed to have been surgically removed at some point in the house’s more recent past

Why would someone do something so obviously destructive? Had the beam failed due to some flaw; was it somehow catastrophically damaged without any evidence in other parts of the structure? No, apparently, it was in the way of PVC pipes run to connect an added bathroom upstairs to the existing basement plumbing. We knew it was true, because there just aft of the remaining section of the central support beam, hung a questionable plumbing installation and nearby on the floor, snug against a foundation wall, laid the amputated length of support timber.

It could all be fixed and my clients went to contract on the house.

You can’t make this stuff up.