This photo of a “nail house” in Wenling, People’s Republic of China is making the rounds on the internet. The reports (see also here for higher res photos) say that the homeowners refused to take the offers to sell, so the developer built the road around their house. “They are called “nail houses” because the homeowners refuse to be hammered down.”
We’ve covered similar circumstances before (here, the “calvacade of homeowner holdouts,” and famous nail houses for example). Indeed, this is not a recent phenomenon. See Seattle’s Denny regrade, for example. More photos from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Homeowners who didn’t go along with the Denny regrade project had the hill dug out around them. Photo: Seattlepi.com File / Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Reminds us of the Warner Bros. classic “Homeless Hare,” where Bugs Bunny objects to a developer’s efforts to evict him from his hole: “Hey ya big gorilla, didn’t you ever hear about the sanctity of the American home?”