The house purchased by the owner has cracked walls, and the owner has measured the thickness themselves. On October 31, 2009, Mr. Li bought a commercial apartment in Building D of the Wangjiaocheng housing development on Jinlong Avenue in Tongchuan District, Dazhou City at a price of 2700 yuan per square meter. Since Mr. Li worked in Guangdong all year round, he returned to Guangdong after signing the purchase contract and completing the mortgage procedures. It was not until this year's Lantern Festival that Mr. Li prepared to renovate his new house and discovered when entering the house that what was originally a good house had become unrecognizable. Not only were there numerous cracks on the ceiling, but each room had also been patched with large areas of cement. Later, upon hearing from the neighbors, Mr. Li learned that these were the repair marks made by the developer after learning about the extensive cracking in Building D. However, even after the repairs, the house continued to crack.
On the 28th, the reporter contacted Mr. Deng again. Mr. Deng told the reporter over the phone that the staff handling the matter had not returned yet, and would notify the reporter once they returned. Meanwhile, Mr. Li called the reporter again, stating that he intended to find a drilling worker to drill a hole in his living room to see the actual thickness of the floor slab and determine whether it met national standards. After receiving the call, the reporter drove to Wangjiaocheng again. In Mr. Li's living room, after about 3 minutes of drilling, the floor slab was penetrated. The reporter used a tape measure to measure the thickness of the hole, measuring less than 11 centimeters. At this point, Ms. Wang, the resident of apartment 2 on the 8th floor below Mr. Li, took the drilled cylindrical piece of concrete to apartment 5 on the 9th floor and told the reporter that her ceiling had undergone several renovation steps including scraping gray and painting, thickening the ceiling. Therefore, the thickness added during the renovation should be subtracted. The reporter then remeasured the cylindrical piece of concrete, and the data obtained differed significantly from the initial measurement, showing less than 9.5 centimeters.
As of press time, the reporter has not seen any relevant acceptance documentation. This website will continue to follow up and report on the progress of the situation.
Subsequently, the reporter went to the Dazhou Construction Engineering Quality and Safety Supervision Station for inquiries. However, the office staff of several offices had already gone to various construction sites for inspections and were not in the office. The reporter could only contact a Mr. Yang from the supervision room via phone. The staff member informed the reporter over the phone, “Wangjiaocheng has indeed passed the acceptance inspection. There is no explicit regulation regarding the thickness of the floor slab, and the thickness of the floor slabs in the living room and bedroom are different and cannot be compared. Generally speaking, the span of the living room is larger, so the floor slab needs to be thicker, while the bedroom is relatively thinner.”
Afterward, Mr. Wang, the owner of apartment 7 on the 9th floor, pulled the reporter into his own home and pointed out the problems with the house. In Mr. Wang’s home, the reporter saw that although the house had been renovated and inhabited for more than half a year, the water stains on the ceiling were still clearly visible, and there were numerous cracks on the living room ceiling radiating outward in all directions. “The quality of this house is too poor. I really regret buying this house,” Mr. Wang lamented. “Especially the floor slab, we don’t know if its thickness meets the standard. Anyway, as soon as you step on it, the whole house shakes, making us feel anxious every day.”
After leaving Mr. Wang's home, the reporter went to the Wangjiaocheng sales office to inquire about the matter, but the sales office was locked tightly. Out of necessity, the reporter had to leave temporarily. Less than an hour after the reporter left, Mr. Li called again to inform that the sales office door was open, and the project manager was inside. The reporter immediately rushed back to the Wangjiaocheng sales office. At the sales office, the reporter informed Project Manager Mr. Deng of the purpose of the visit. Mr. Deng told the reporter that the procedures for this housing development were complete, including the completion report and quality inspection report, and there were no quality issues. Regarding the cracking of the house, Mr. Deng stated: "80% of the houses in Dazhou have this issue. It’s not because we cut corners; it’s because the relevant departments required us to use a specific type of commercial concrete material, which results in this situation." Subsequently, the reporter requested to view the relevant completion procedures of the housing development. Mr. Deng told the reporter that the archivist was not present as they were handling matters in Chengdu, and the documents could only be viewed upon their return.
On the 27th, after receiving Mr. Li's hotline call, the reporter went to Wangjiaocheng to investigate and interview. Mr. Li told the reporter that after discovering these issues, he repeatedly approached Sichuan Jinsiji Real Estate Development Co., Ltd., the developer of the housing development, requesting a resolution, but the developer merely procrastinated and refused to address the problem. During the interview, Mr. Wang, the owner of apartment 7 on the 9th floor of Building D, and Ms. Wang, the owner of apartment 2 on the 8th floor, came upon hearing the news and poured out their grievances to the reporter. “I moved in after finishing the renovation in May 2011. It's been only half a year, and the ceiling has started cracking again,” Ms. Wang told the reporter. “When he (Mr. Li) started renovating his house and brought sand and stones in, my ceiling began leaking extensively, which infuriated me. That’s why I blocked his door, preventing him from renovating, delaying him for more than a week.” According to Ms. Wang, shortly after handing over the keys, due to the extensive cracking in Building D, the developer negotiated with the owners who were at home and compensated each family with several thousand yuan. As for the owners who were not at home, the developer used their decoration keys to enter the houses and carried out very simple cement patching, merely covering up the cracks.