By the mid-1980s, the industrially prefabricated housing silos in all the larger towns had developed into satellite towns, while the old buildings, which had been neglected for decades, were becoming increasingly dilapidated.
In many houses, often only the middle floors were still occupied, and final decay was only a matter of time. The municipal housing authorities were drowning in petitions and complaints from the population.
Even the local party leaderships were not spared and desperately sought solutions. Awarded several times as an โactivist of socialist workโ because of my organizational skills, I was asked if I would be willing to take over the management of a new department at the municipal housing administration.
With a dozen young civil engineers, the building decay in our city district was to be stopped. This task resembled the futile effort of trying to put out a burning barn with a hand-held fire extinguisher.
Nevertheless, I agreed because I hoped to make faster progress in the renovation of the old villa in my new position. In fact, as head of the department โMain contractor for building repairs,โ I had access to all kinds of private and cooperative craft enterprises that were obliged to carry out building repairs.
But they mostly talked their way out of it when it came to concrete orders: no people, no material, lack of scaffolding, lack of transport capacity, and so on and so forth.
Instead, they sent their craftsmen to build dachas or family homes for influential party officials. In short, private matters took precedence over state requirements because most things worked only on the basis of personal relationships.
I also used my position to repair the dilapidated villa. Stones and roof tiles were delivered. The chimney sweep had to deliver the planks for the running board.
The scaffolding for the renewal of the chimneys, which were up to seven meters high, was provided by one of my employees. The first and most important major construction project was prepared: With the help of a few residents and friends, the attic was cleared out and space created for construction.
Little by little, all the building materials were hauled upstairs by hand. When the mortar mixer was finally in front of the house, the storm was blown. The girls had prepared the food for the many volunteers the day before, because the kitchen had to stay cold.
Now things had to go quickly, and nothing could be allowed to go wrong. The first two chimneys were scaffolded, taken down with the roof open and rebuilt. That was all that could be done in one weekend. It was not until the next weekend that the work could be completed.
Over the summer months, the large-scale project was repeated three times after longer breaks, and fortunately the weather gods were always kind to us. Finally, the roof was tight again, and thanks to my illegally procured 80 running meters of downpipe, the roof drainage also functioned properly.
With the help of friends, colleagues, neighbors and my future family, the threatening decay of the house was stopped for the time being.
Only one central problem remained to be solved: The repair of the defective sewage sluice; the thousand other defects did not threaten the existence of the house and could be eliminated step by step. ๐ฃ๐ธ ๐๐ฎ ๐๐ธ๐ท๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ท๐พ๐ฎ๐ญ…
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