Not so long ago just about every house in Montreal had a shed out back.The shed was usually not much to look at from the outside, often painted a metallic grey with bare wood on the inside. It would eat at much of the backyard and eventually got a reputation as a firetrap or a place where kids would go to smoke or read dirty magazines, or collect useless clutter.
A few high-profile stories, such as tragic one where three kids died in Westmount gave the shed a black eye.
And the occasional arsonist would set fire to a shed, which would go up rather fast due to their flammable construction. For example a guy named Thomas Mckeaveney actually pushed the City of Verdun to pass a bylaw forcing owners to demolish sheds after a series of arsons on Willibrod in 1990, the mayor noted that 3,000 of the 4,000 sheds in Verdun had already been demolished in the previous decade. That same year Montreal reported that Operation Tournesol, giving $2,000 to $3,000 to landlords to demolish their sheds, had resulted in the demolition over half of another 4,000 sheds, likely further incentivized by lowered insurance rates. Councillor Andre Cardinal said in 1985 that there were 15,000 already demolished and another 19,000 sheds remaining in Montreal (presumably in the municipal boundaries of that era.) By 1990 the city was offering $4,500 to demolish sheds.
Keep in mind that smoke detectors were not really common for much of the anti-shed era.
The idea of the time, the meme, was that these places were far more dangerous than valuable so they really must be torn down and nobody ever argued the contrary from what I could tell.
Failure to consider the value of a shed has really cost us, however because yes, it’s true that many people tossed useless stuff in their sheds but much of that useless stuff has gained value of the years, as anybody who has ever watched the Antiques Roadshow knows, today’s junk is tomorrow’s treasure.
For example, an old Popeye clock from the 1940s cost about $7 at a department store and now the same clock goes for auction at about $1,000 or so.
So let’s say that you went out today and blew $1,000 in the local shops right now and left the items all wrapped up and unopened in your shed. It’s not unreasonable to assume that those same items would be worth today’s equivalent of $1 million in about 70 years. Your great grandkids would worship you, assuming you had a place to keep the package for those decades.
So yes, while hoarding has been given a bad name, there’s some value in having a place to store things, not just for personal benefit but also for the patrimony of a culture.
A good chunk of Montreal’s history and past, the items that would be in tomorrow’s museums, have been tossed out over the last few decades simply because there’s no damn place to put our stuff and renting a tiny bit of space at a warehouse costs like $50 a month or something.
And while surely we’ve saved a few lives by eradicating sheds, and some might argued even beautified the city, we’ve also lost tons of valuable antiques and much memorabilia that not only would have passed down some cash value to a younger generation but also would have left a fingerprint from that era.
The city still has various initiatives to demolish sheds but if you still have one, you'd surely be better off to try to figure out a way to turn it into an addition onto your house.
Too bad you can't pay for some of that transformation with that Popeye clock that you would surely have found back there if they hadn't pressured your dad to knock your shed down.
My grandparents old house (which had lots of strange happenings in it but that is another story for another time!!) at the corner of Wellington and Bourgeoys had a two story shed/stable combination that had a rickety wooden walkway leading from the upstairs of my grandparents house to the hayloft/junk storage area.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather tore it down in the late 60's? early 70'? (need to ask my mom) but my mom used to play in it as a kid in the late 50's- early 60's and read old movie star magazines from the 1930's that had been stored in there by the previous owner. She remembers there being lots of OLD stuff stored in the shed but since she was a kid, she didn't care about it or think to look through it except to look at the photos of old movie stars!!
She said my grandfather used to march across that rickety bridge made from Victorian wood and the thing used to rock and sway from his weight (he was over 6' and not a slim man!).
As a kid in the late 70's and 80's, my sister and I used to dig holes in the backyard and find old horse shoes from when it used to be a stable yard. My mom found a coin from 1894 in the dirt there. The concrete stable floor of the shed was still there in the 80's after my grandparents moved out as my grandfather never dug it up.
While it is undeniably true that certain antiques and memorabilia can be worth thousands of dollars, the reality is that most of the clutter we hoard with the expectation that "it will be "worth something someday", is either withful thinking or patently false for various reasons, including disinformation.
ReplyDeleteHow many remember the fiasco surrounding the 1976 Montreal Olympic coin sets which went on sale before the actual Olympics opened? The media of the day promoted these coins as "collectors' items certain to increase in value!"
Well, surprise, surprise! Not long afterward, everyone soon learned that the coin sets actually began to decrease in value, and the reason should be obvious: so many people were duped into buying them that their true value turned out to be less than the original sale price. Buyer beware!
Then remember the frenzy over certain old comic books found in attics, sheds, and basements, some of which did indeed have a high value because in those days nobody ever imagined they--like old newspapers--would ever be worth anything. Your parents made you throw them out, burn them, give them to childrens' hospitals, etc. Besides, the pulp paper they were printed on was eventually doomed to crumble into dust, but who then among the general population ever considered such a possibility? Nobody.
Decades later, greedy publishers got the bright idea of printing the words "collectors' edition" on just about every horror magazine and others--a brazen ploy to generate sales when newsprint prices were poised to go through the roof--which they did. Magazines which were 35 cents in 1964 were up to $2.00 by the early 1980s. Such greed reached its most outrageous peak when some comics and magazines were released to the newsstands with alternate covers! All "collectors' editions", of course! And I believe this is still happening today! P.T. Barnum was so right!
It must surely be poetic justice today for those who avoided buying all of that junk back then to discover today that many of those "collectibles" are now online--for FREE! No boxes needed anymore in the shed or attic and no crumbling pulp!
Go to comic and magazine conventions today and you will see those same so-called "collectors" editions" sitting in the bins gathering dust because nobody wants them. The collectors who bought them when they first appeared on the newsstands and held onto them hoping to cash in later were duped. Well, maybe their great-great-great grandchildren might get lucky--that is, if they cared enough in the first place to have kept them hoarded in some shed or attic.
Same with trading card "collectibles". While I myself did get lucky after selling my 1961-62 hockey sets to a dealer for an unexpectedly high offering price, the kids of today will not likely be as fortunate, given the total glut on the market with countless different brands and styles on offer. Presumably so many of these will be near-worthless even to our future great-grandchildren.
Returning to the subject of sheds: they are a hazard and should all be scrapped. Definitely nothing of value should ever be left in such an uncontrolled environment through four seasons of hot, cold, damp, mould, insects, vermin, fire, theft, etc. Even basements are not much safer, for how many people have lost valuables after unexpected flooding? Attics are the obvious first choice to save all of your "valuables"--even if they are of only a personal nature such as photos, books, or clothing of sentimental value.
Yes, it is always heartening to learn that some rare painting, classic automobile, sculpture, and so on has been unexpectedly discovered by chance somewhere and then seeing it fetch some outrageous price on the auction block, but sadly, such events invariably happen to someone else and not to us.
I am puzzled and surprised by this.
ReplyDeleteI've got a shed, I built it a couple years ago in my backyard. They seem to be very common in NDG.
The only thing NDG requires for sheds is that if within 2 feet of the property line that they have fireproof gyproc on the inside.
I also sensibly relocated some bushes so the neighbour's kids can't spray paint it when they're being drunken idiots.
-Kevin
I grew up in Snowdon and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, and I feel that growing without a shed left a big void in myself.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I take a walk, I often go through the lanes and I keep marvelling at the few sheds that are left.
I recall seeing in Verdun a shed that has been converted into a three-story balcony, a really nice idea.
It makes no difference if such sheds are made of "fireproof gyproc", corrugated metal, or similar non-flammable material since what catches fire are the CONTENTS of these sheds, including spontaneously combustible chemicals, oily rags, etc.
ReplyDeleteThen, of course, sheds can be the target of arsonists, mindless kids who were tempted to stick firecrackers inside of them back in the day when such firecrackers were easily available at the corner candy store (!), and, not unexpectedly, property owners "accidently" setting fire to them and hoping to collect the insurance.
* * *
Hey, Kristian, since you seem to love gory stuff, I just remembered a tale told to me years ago by a friend whose father used to be employed as a mobile security guard for one of Montreal's breweries.
I am vague on exactly how the event developed, but it seems that this security guard was routinely following a beer truck late at night in his car when a horrific road accident occurred (not clear if it involved the beer truck itself) where one of the victims involved in the accident was decapitated.
My friend insists that his father for some morbid reason grabbed the head and took it back home in a paper bag, tossing it unceremoniously into his shed where soon enough it began to rot and stink until eventually only the skull remained and was kept as a "souvenir". Pretty morbid, eh?
Not sure how the police or coroner at that time dealt with the accident itself concerning the missing head, but perhaps this may solve a long outstanding mystery in one of the city's "cold case files", who knows?
Sorry, but, I haven't a clue as to the year this event reportedly took place in, but die-hard researchers are most welcome to investigate further if they wish. :-)
It's a shame the city goes on campaigns to change character of the city itself. Fire is one problem, and sheds are another. Fires are much less common now, with improved wiring and gyp-rock standards. Most of the sheds you see now have been finished on the inside, and function as workshops or extra bedrooms (lowering demand on housing in the aggregate.
ReplyDeleteThe city bureaucracy does not care if people have useful workshop areas or not. It's the garages of suburbia that have been source of most inventions we enjoy today. Think silicon valley.