A Chinese family have finally agreed to sell up their house after living in the middle of a road since 2004.
Mr Xu, 87, and his eight family members waved goodbye to their house in suburban Shanghai on September 15 after the developer agreed to give them four new flats and 2.3 million yuan (£260,000) last month.
The three-storey building was demolished in just 90 minutes by workers earlier today.
You’ll have to build around us! The four-lane Hu Ting Bei Road, in Shanghai, had to narrow as Xu’s house stood in the middle
Mr Xu and his family refused to move out after they received a notice of house demolish in 2003 for urban development
According to The Paper, two diggers and two high pressure water guns were set up at 12am on September 18.
The family house was brought down by the diggers and a dump truck carried the rubbles away.
The reports said that Mr Xu received a notice of house demolish in 2003 issued by the local government.
The notice apparent said that the land had been earmarked to be knocked down to make room for the city’s renewal project.
Mr Xu’s house was located in Jiuliting, Shanghai’s Songjiang District. The family reportedly refused to move because they were not happy with the compensation offered to them.
Houses as such are usually referred as ‘nail house’ in China, which people refused their homes to be hammered down.
The family had lived in the middle of the road for 14 years because they were said to be unhappy about the compensation
The family said serious traffic accidents had happened in the past that almost crashed into their home in Songjiang, Shanghai
In the following decade, the Xu family and the Songjiang urban renewal project team failed to come to an agreement.
The two sides had been negotiating compensation plans until August 19 this year, when a consensus was reached.
The three-story house had been standing in the middle of Hu Ting Bei Road for the past 14 years. All of the nearby houses had been torn down and turned into a four-lane road.
However, Mr Xu’s nail house made the road impossible to build all four lanes on. The road was narrowed down to two lanes and had to bend around the house, which often cause traffic jams during rush hours.
Ms Xu told the reporter that they started to packing and moving out on September 7.
The Xu family moved out last Friday and local urban development authority sent teams to take down the house earlier today
After a decade-long discussion, the family finally made an agreement with the developer and decided to leave the building
Diggers and water guns were dispatched to the address as workers pulled down the 60-year-old building at midnight
She said the house served as her family home for over 60 years.
The Xu family said it’s not easy to live in the middle of a road and they wished to move out as soon as they reached an agreement.
Zhang Xinguo, a daughter-in-law of the family, said: ‘I have witnessed serious car accidents at least three times and there was one time a taxi crashed and ended up hitting the cement pillar.’
The construction had to be carried out at midnight in order to avoid impacting the busy traffic in the area
In just 90 minutes, the three-storey building was taken down and turned into rubble after the Xu family moved out last week
The Xu family budged after the developer agreed to give them four new flats as well as £260,000 in a meeting last month
The family of nine cleared the house on September 15 as they moved the furniture onto a truck and drove to a rented apartment.
Zhang explained that the developer had agreed to give them with four new flats of different sizes in addition to 2.3 million yuan (£260,000) financial compensation.
The family can only stay in a nearby rented apartment until the new flats are built.