The barn and horse stables directly across the road from us have been empty for almost 2 years now. The man who originally owned the land died, and it was left in equal parts to his children. (or at least that is what I was told through neighborhood gossip) What I know for sure, is that someone put in a request to build a six-unit apartment building there instead. I saw the plans at the town offices. And I did my Swiss civic duty and filed a formal complaint against it. 🙂
It’s not that I don’t want an apartment building there at all, although we were very sad to see the beautiful horses drive away in trailers, never to be seen galloping through the meadows again. sniff sniff It’s just that this one is going to be U.G.L.Y. and totally clash with the charm and style that is currently our Muehliberg. All the houses are pretty much the same style, and color. The windows all looked pretty much the same, and it gives harmony and character to the whole area. But they want to now come in with this modern, boxy, metallic sliding shutters monstrosity, and I just couldn’t bear to look at that every time I glanced out my windows.
But I never heard back from the city on my complaint. I don’t know if it was addressed, ignored, or tossed. But for two years there was absolutely no action going on. The horses were gone, but no new construction was taking place. The building just sat there. Building permits in Switzerland come complete with expiration dates, so I knew the time was getting very close to when they would either need to start actual construction, or start completely over again, submitting a request for a new building permit. I, and a few of my neighbors, were hoping for the latter.
And we had good reason to hope, since it was spread through the neighborhood grapevine, that “they” had run out of money! I know, I shouldn’t take such joy in others bad luck, but it’s not like they were destitute, they just didn’t have enough spare cash to consider taking on such a large project. Alas, circumstances must have changed, because the demolition crew showed up a couple of weeks ago. 🙁
Watching a house being dismantled here is always so fascinating. They are so methodical and organized about it all. In the States I have either seen the buildings be imploded, or they just whack it with a giant wrecking ball. Not here. They take it apart piece, by piece, pretty much like it was built, just in reverse. First they took off all the roof tiles, one by one, and loaded them in the dumpster. Then they cleaned out all the old hay that was still in the building. That took 2 whole dumpsters, actually. And of course, that was just what I could see from the outside. I am sure there were guys in there ripping up flooring, removing electrical wiring, and everything else, in the same methodical way.
I am pretty sure most of the material gets recycled.
They only fill the dumpster up with one kind of a material at a time, and then drive it off somewhere. The hay went to the compost plant,for sure, the tiles to somewhere else, etc. 
Taking it completely apart will probably continue for another couple of weeks, although they are mostly down to just the wooden framing now. And then depending on the weather, they will either do nothing, or start digging out the foundation for the new building. My only consolation is that hopefully some really nice families with young children will move in, creating more playmates for my children. 🙂