Fairmount subdivision resident Donna Riley has experienced the failure of the city’s blasting bylaw first-hand.

“We are having a tremendous amount of problems,” Riley said from her Doull Avenue home in Halifax.

“I’ve actually had pictures fall off my wall, I have a leaky basement for the first time in 35 years, and I’m terrified my dining wall might actually fall down because I have such huge cracks in it,” she said.

It might be difficult, however, to prove such damage is related to the blasting.

Riley said she was not eligible for a pre-blast survey of her home’s condition before blasting started, because she lives outside the 150 metres required under the city’s bylaw.

Riley said she’s fed up with the noise and the vibrations caused by the blasting, which is scheduled to last another three months.

“It shook so hard one day that my Hummel (ornament) fell off my piano and broke, and I just screamed,” she said.

Riley said the blast-monitoring company reviewed the damage to her home last week, but she’s heard nothing since.

Riley said while a new blasting bylaw won’t help her, she’s encouraging other residents to get involved for their own protection.

Neither the New Brunswick-based blasting company, Conspec, nor its monitoring company, K&M Inspections, returned calls about the Fairmount situation.

Carol MacCulloch of the Construction Association of Nova Scotia said blasting is a necessary evil when constructing on bedrock.

“People don’t like it, but we don’t have a whole lot of choices here,” she said.