Our home starts to split

Our cat had an episode of strange behaviour last week. She was inspecting, scanning, staring and meowing at a particular area of the east wall of our home for quite a while. I discovered only today that she may have reacted to the subtle vibrations and noise caused by the expansion of a major crack on the outside wall of our building.

Approximately 20 minutes earlier, I had observed a bus coming downhill from Glencree, smashing into the crossing and onwards into the center of the village, passing by our window in the blink of an eye.

Needless to say that this event coincided with a major vibration shaking our premises. We are dealing with vibrations from traffic for more than 1.5 years now, yet this kind of intensity was last felt when our sanitary broke (see earlier blog post The basin broke).

Today I was invited by our neighbours, who made me aware of a major vertical crack in the east wall of our building.

This is behind the area visible from street level, so I don't know if the extend of the crack is owed to events from earlier in the week or not. Yet, due to no signs of weathering/water and sharp edges on major parts of this crack, I at least suspect that most of it has formed just recently.

A closer look:

Together with increasing noise from cracking masonary and timberwork, evidence seems to be mounting on where our habitat will split, if neglect of the impact from traffic on the crossing continues.

I am not sure how this latest discovery will impact our anxiety levels, but I know that the next nights will be restless again - until we find means to cope (hopefully).

Vibrations of increasing strength have become a continuous threat over the past 1.5 years, with increasing night activity and interruption of sleep. As little strokes fell big oaks, 20-40 quakes a day continue to eat away at the structural integrity of our home. With further neglect and major development to start soon in the vincinity of our home - is the writing on the wall for a major incident?