[FONT=Verdana]Bach (pronounced [FONT=Verdana]batch[/FONT]) is New Zealand terminology for a small holiday home. In the south of New Zealand (Southland & Otago) the term "crib" is used instead of "bach".[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]A bureaucratic bungle saw demolition men take to the wrong Coromandel holiday home this week. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]But the owner of the bach doesn't know whether he's grateful or annoyed a neighboring resident stopped the workers finishing what they'd started. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Contractors for the Thames Coromandel District Council went to the small seaside settlement of Colville with instructions to demolish an old bach at the end of Wharf Rd. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]A curious neighbor watched as the workers took to his absent friend's holiday home. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]About six sheets of rusty tin roof were torn from the house before an emergency call to the Hamilton-based property owner was made. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Tracey Cooper, chief reporter for the Waikato Times, received the early morning wake-up call. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]While saying his house wasn't in a great state of repair, he certainly wasn't volunteering a destruction order. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]He rushed to Colville to check the damage and to take the issue up with council managers. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]"They got the wrong place. It was full of rust ... and it's probably prompted me to do something about it now. If he [the neighbor] hadn't seen it happening they would've taken the whole place down." [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]The contractors were meant to have demolished a house on the opposite side of the road, which Mr. Cooper said was probably in a better shape than his own. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]He explained there was pressure on him to improve his bach's condition. If it had been flattened he could have claimed compensation, or even asked for a new house to be built, courtesy of the council. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]"I'm pretty pissed off with my neighbor really, because it's a leaky, rusty, rotten old bach." [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]At least he had a partly new roof now, he said. Council communications spokesman Peter Hazael said second-hand iron sheets from the house that was earmarked for demolition were used to replace Mr. Cooper's roof. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Some of the initial confusion had perhaps come about because the houses were the same color. But a "please explain" was still being issued to the contractors. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]A destruction order was made because a couple, aged in their 80s, had laid claim to the old bach that was actually sited on council land. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]The couple had agreed to the removal of their bach after lengthy discussions with the council. [/FONT]
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