A view of a river right outside your home could be really peaceful and relaxing, but apparently, it’s not easy to build a home by a river.

In this story, one woman actually wants her home built so close to the river that her windows are under water. The contractor tried to warn her about potential problems, but she wouldn’t listen.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

Wanna build your house there? Ok, but- All right, we’ll build it there, I guess…

So one of my dad’s friends came over a few days ago, and he was just telling us about a time when he was hired to build a house next to a river.

Backstory: The friend (henceforth refers to as F) worked for a construction company.

One day, he was hired by an Incompetent Lady (IL) who wanted her house built by a river. This meant that they would have to dam the river, build a hill, etc.

IL didn’t understand that and thought they were wasting her time, so she didn’t let them take the precautions.

It was a tricky building situation.

Malicious Compliance: Building a house by the river is hard.

A slow river? It’s flowing, so you have to be careful to not get any boards in the water.

F tries to build a hill, but IL comes in the nick of time and stops him, saying that she wants a view of the river from her basement.

Of course, that meant that she had to sign 2-3 more agreements.

But the homeowner had another request.

F starts building, and gets everything done in 3 months.

IL is not satisfied and wants the basement window edges underwater so people can see how rich she is.

They do exactly that. They do that for ~3-4k more USD. Window is about 3 ft into the river and almost a foot underwater. They build stairs to accommodate for drop.

IL is satisfied and they leave.

The homeowner loved it at first.

Cue lots of problems:

1. Winter: IL sees that the water rose 6-7 inches and is happy

2. Next day: Fine, there’s a couple of hairline fractures, IL is very careful to document the damage, she thinks someone threw rocks at her windows.

3. Heavy snow: water inrushing past and rose another 3-4 inches, IL loves it, flaunting it to her neighbors and F

But eventually, the problems became pretty expensive.

4. 2 days later, the window fails. too much pressure from the water that is stopped apparently eroded the bottom part and the hairline fractures from the ice hitting her window gave it a weak point.

All in all, she had to pay ~20k in repairs to drain, refinish and paint her basement, then get new windows.

Also, she had a dam installed a few feet upstream.

I’m picturing water flooding into her basement. That’s not something to brag about!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I completely agree.

This is true.

Another person has a question.

She should’ve listened!

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.