There are two houses being

demolished along my regular pedalling route. There have been other houses demolished in the past. When this happens they seem to be replaced with two dwellings rather than one. It has happened twice on the opposite side of our street alone.
Now we have a house being demolished about two hundred metres away. I knew the original owners. They built the house themselves. It was not really that old. After they died their daughter and her husband lived in it for a while but it was not large enough to accommodate their needs (a giant caravan, a boat, a trailer and three cars). They left. The house was sold. The neighbours assumed a family would move in. Instead the place is being demolished. The roof and chimney came off in one afternoon. Yesterday there was a constant stream of heavy machinery removing the rubble. This morning I can hear them clearing the rest. It will be done by the end of the day. It will have taken a mere two and a half days to turn a house into a building plot.
It would have taken months to build the house and years to develop the garden. I doubt the developer has even thought of that.
The other house is a little further away. It has been decaying for a long time. There were a succession of rental tenants in there until the cracks became so obvious that it was clear nobody could safely live there. There was no garden to speak of - just gravel and a couple of almost dead shrubs. Oddly it has taken them a little longer to demolish that house.
There will, without doubt, be duplexes built on those plots. The other houses will fade into distant memory. There might be photographs to remind someone that there were once new houses on that land, that they were once the pride and joy of someone.
I wonder if the new owners will give any thought to what was once there. I am almost certain the developer will forget as soon as demolition has taken place.
And I wonder about the men who demolish such places. Do they consider what they are demolishing? Is it just a structure that has to be pulled down or do they ever consider that, once, someone lived there?