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SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah man was hoping to sell a Salt Lake City house quickly after fixing it up and installing numerous upgrades over the past three months, but Michael Burns said his plans for the property ran into an unexpected and shocking snag this week.
When Burns showed up Sunday to check on the home at 1237 East Hudson Avenue, he noticed what initially looked like a lot of mud on top of the driveway.
“Then I got a little closer and I realized our driveway was gone — the whole driveway…gone!” exclaimed Burns of the Burnz Team, which bills itself as a one-stop-shop for selling and buying real estate investing and home loans. “(There was) 75 (feet) by 12 feet just demoed out, just disappeared.”
Burns said Monday he never contracted the work and still does not know who excavated the driveway.
“I mean, you can see right here, it was professionally done, saw-cut,” Burns said.
It apparently wasn’t a fast job, either.
“(I) talked to the neighbors across the street and they said, ‘oh yeah, the guys spent two-and-a-half, three days over last weekend pulling it out,” Burns said.
He was out of town at the time when the incident occurred.
Neighbors apparently couldn’t tell Burns what contractor was working at the property and no surveillance cameras captured the workers on video.
Burns said he contacted police, but he said he was told what happened was likely to be viewed as a civil matter.
He acknowledged the excavation was probably a mistake and nothing malicious.
“I think a construction crew just hit the wrong property and didn’t think they should come back and tell us what they did,” Burns said.
He hoped the work crew might see the news coverage of what happened and make it right, given it will take another $10,000 to $12,000 to finish the driveway.
“I would come back and say, ‘hey, you know, sorry, what can we do to work it out,’ but that has not happened yet,” Burns said.
