That day has come - the drilling, crashing, smashing, banging, Whoo-hoo-ing, Tay oi-ing, hammering, grinding, hacking and sawing begins... – the octogenarian or nonagenarian woman has passed, or sold up, and her bungalow has been demolished. The construction starts this week.

Six months of Sunday-sleepin-lessness and grumpiness starts here.

From the archives: UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Teddy de Burca Jnr. ponders a rather challenging work in progress – the street he lives on
Every time I return from a trip abroad, I wonder if the construction work on my street has finished. It doesn’t matter how often I go, or even how long I stay away. It never does. The road is long. So, so long.
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I wonder how many floors the new building will be... six, seven, eight? Odds on it's slightly taller than the last one, which was of course, slightly taller than the previously built one, in what seems to be some kind of oneupmanship-domino effect.

Though perhaps people need to be a bit more careful they have the planning permission for these towering abodes these days... though these buildings (see below) are quite a bit bigger, their top floors are being being pulled down for going up too far.

Hanoi high-rises set to demolish unauthorized floors

Owners of a 17-story building in Hanoi began to remove furniture and equipment Friday from the unauthorized top three floors in preparation for their demolition.

Besides the building on Dao Duy Anh Street in Dong Da district, four others in the capital too are set to lose their unauthorized floors.
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According to this week's VIR only 70 per cent of construction sites in Hanoi have planning permission, while 34 per cent of that lot have ignored building restrictions. .