Mr. Ho has three sons who are all well-off. His children offered to build him a nice house, but he refused.
The “unique” house on the land facing the provincial road
Located on the provincial road, in Nam Phuoc town, Duy Xuyen district, Quang Nam province, the land with an area of about 300m2 of Mr. Huynh Ho’s family (84 years old) is valued by local people at tens of billions of VND. However, on that valuable land, there is an extremely strange house. That is the house that more than 40 years ago, Mr. Ho started building with his own hands.
Mr. Ho’s two-story house was built temporarily, without any architectural style. It looked like an abandoned house, patched together with iron, steel, bricks, stones, lime, mortar, etc. He also decorated the roof with broken marble tiles.
The front of the house faces the provincial road.
The house was not built tightly but had many holes. Inside the house was dark, dilapidated, with furniture scattered about, wires tangled,… like a pile of ruins. Some places in the house would fall off if you touched them.
The stairs leading to the second floor of the house are very difficult to climb. You have to be careful or you will fall. The trees behind the house are very dense, making it difficult to get in.
Mr. Ho and his wife are living in a house built in front of the strange house. In addition, Mr. Ho can still rent out the front of the house for business purposes.
Previously, Mr. Ho worked as a cart puller. Every day, he went to work and picked up soil, rocks, and discarded steel from construction sites to build his house. He even picked up a bridge pillar and put it on a cart to take home. He saved up all the money he earned from work to buy cement. He built the house by hand without using any tools.
Mr. Ho collected materials to build the house himself.
The house is patchwork and temporary but is Mr. Ho’s life’s work.
Mr. Ho started building his house in 1980. At first, he hired construction workers, but after finishing the foundation, he ran out of money, so he built it himself. Mr. Ho said he made the pillars of the house very sturdy and used a lot of cement.
The “freak” from Quang Nam worked diligently to build his “unique” house for 30 years. In 2010, due to poor health, Mr. Ho stopped building the house.
The son offered to build a nice house for him, but the father refused.
It is known that Mr. Ho and his wife have 3 sons who are all well-off and are living in Da Nang City. The children want their father to demolish the house he built himself to build him a new, more spacious house, but he does not agree. Mr. Ho also refuses to go to Da Nang to live with his children and grandchildren, preferring to live in his own house for comfort.
Stairs from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor of the house.
Previously, because of fear and because she could not stand her husband’s eccentricity, Mr. Ho’s wife followed her children to live in Da Nang, occasionally coming back to visit. But now, Mr. Ho is old, so she has returned home to take care of him.
When asked if she was scared in this house, she said: “So scared, the rain and wind are afraid the house will collapse”. She never dared to climb to the second floor of the house. The neighbors living next to Mr. Ho’s house were also very worried but did not know what to do because he was now old and weak.
The strange thing is that despite being built so temporarily, over the past decades, Mr. Ho’s house has still stood tall through many big storms.
Although the children wanted to build a nice house for their father, Mr. Ho did not agree.
Mr. Ho’s wife is afraid to live in this house.
“In 1989, there was a very big storm, storm number 5, which destroyed many schools, but Mr. Ho’s house was not affected at all.”, a neighbor revealed.
Currently, Mr. Ho rents out the front of the house for business purposes to make ends meet. When asked about his wishes, Mr. Ho said he would not sell the house or land but leave it to his children and grandchildren. However, if possible, he would like to renovate his beloved house.