A series of unfortunate mishaps 15 years in the making, led to Steve Ballas getting a call on Wednesday morning from a friend, to say his three-bedroom property was being demolished.

“A friend of mine drove past and rang me up to ask if I was demolishing…I thought he was joking at first,” the Bankstown Gun Shop owner told Domain.

“Then I realised he wasn’t and I ran out of the shop, leaving a work colleague in charge.”

By the time he got to the vacant property, which he had been fixing up to rent out next year, workers from Daniel’s Demolitions were half way through knocking it down.

Not wanting to approach the workers in case a confrontation ensued, Mr Ballas said he contacted police and Canterbury Bankstown Council, to report that his house was being knocked down without his permission. 

“The police came out and stopped the demolition, but it was too late there was only one wall left,” Mr Ballas said, noting that he asked the workers to knock down the remaining wall as there was no point keeping it.

The confused demolition workers thought they had been demolishing a property at 200 Marion Street, Bankstown, but they had actually knocked down Mr Ballas’ property at 198 Marion Street. 

“The owner of the company was on another job and raced over here when he heard, he was speechless,” Mr Ballas said. “He was looking at it and looking at me and I just said there’s nothing you can do…no one was hurt, this is going to be a thing we laugh at one day.”

The cause of confusion was that the mail box at Mr Ballas’ property has been incorrectly numbered as 200, since he bought the property 15 years ago.

To make matters worse the property that was meant to be demolished, No.200, was incorrectly numbered as 202.

While the post box of the house that was meant to be demolished did have a fresher label with the correct address, this was reportedly covered by junk mail when workers checked the neighbouring properties to make sure they had the right home.

“As far as I’ve always known, it was 200 Marion Street, Bankstown. I didn’t look at the title deed when I got it,” Mr Ballas said, noting he had never seen the address advertised as it was bought in a private sale.

A Canterbury Bankstown Council spokesman confirmed that a DA has been approved for the demolition of a dwelling at 200 Marion street and construction of a dual occupancy. He also noted that rates notices for Mr Ballas’ property had displayed the correct address for 198 Marion Street.

Records also show that the properties at 200 and 202 were previously owned by a Ballas, but were respectively sold in 2015 and 2014. 

Despite this, Mr Ballas said he would have thought a demolition company would have had more processes in place to ensure the wrong property wasn’t demolished.  

“I’d like to think that I’m fairly methodical in my business, in the case of building or demolishing a property, surely everyone involved has to have some type of site plan, especially with all of the wonderful tools they have now, even with just Google maps and a GPS, you think they would have to cross the Ts and dot their Is.”

“But people make mistakes and these guys obviously didn’t do it on purpose, as bad as I feel, I can imagine how terrible they feel,” he said. “When people have these types of businesses, they have insurances and so on, so hopefully it will all be covered.”

Domain contacted Daniel Mandarano, of Daniel’s Demolitions, who declined to comment but said he was devastated about the mix-up.

Mr Mandarano had reportedly only communicated with the person who paid for the demolition via email and was paid some money up front to do the job.

“I often get work to demolish buildings from overseas clients, so it’s not unusual not to meet a client,” he told The Torch.

While Mr Ballas is unsure of what happens next, and disappointed that legal “sharks” will probably need to get involved, he said he hopes to rebuild on the property. 

“I guess that developers will come out of the woodwork and offer me money,” he said. “But I just want something back there…it was a little nest egg that I bought for my son.”