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That time someone left a house in the middle of the street

Posted at 2:06 PM, Oct 03, 2016
and last updated 2016-10-03 14:06:09-04

How does that old ’80s song go? “Our house, in the middle of our street.”

A moving company in Austin, Texas, was trying to ferry a large, white duplex home down the street from one lot to another.

It didn’t go well.

The house was simply too big to fit through the residential street.

The house hit a telephone pole. Streets signs and power lines got in the way. Trees and plants in several yards were clipped. One man said a tree in his yard was cut down after a worker grabbed a chainsaw and tried to create some space — at 2 a.m. on that Friday night.

“I thought he was going to die honestly. It was crazy. He was up there with a chain saw, cutting off a branch, climbing under power wires. It was insane,” resident Johnathan Byrd told CNN affiliate KEYE.

The moving crew, after working all Friday night and into Saturday morning, eventually just gave up and left the house right there — in the middle of the street.

Permit needed

That means Austin Home Movers is blocking a public street and you need a permit for that in Austin — a permit the company doesn’t have.

The company, after it gets the permit, will try to have the house moved by the end of Monday.

“We apologize to everyone for the inconvenience,” Austin Home Movers said in a statement to CNN affiliate KXAN. “We are doing everything we can to alleviate the situation.”

At least the neighbors are keeping a sense of humor about the whole thing. One even suggested putting the house up on Airbnb as a vacation rental.