My husband and I woke up at 6 a.m., wondering if something was about to crash through our house. Lights were flashing in our bedroom window and a deep rumbling shook our corner of the house. We looked out on the driveway we (then) shared with our neighbors. It was a truck, dropping off a porta-potty. Within feet of where we got in and out of our cars each day.

We looked at each other and said: The teardown has begun.

We survived. And our neighbors just put the finishing touches on their new home last summer.

If anyone is used to dealing with the headaches of teardowns, it's the people who live on Edina's Halifax Avenue, where new and newer homes are outpacing the original ones.

A tiny red and white house on Halifax started having the "pre-teardown" look early last week. Sure enough, a piece of heavy equipment moved in a couple of days later. The house and all of its memories were gone in the blink of an eye.

It turns out the house had been built in 1934 and was about 1,600 square feet, with two bedrooms and one bathroom. It sold for $65,000 in 1981, but fetched a whopping $575,000 in May from people who want a new house on that lot.

Edina Realty agent John Everett said today that he handled the transaction for the owner and sold the house to Great Neighborhood Homes, which he lauded for building homes that fit the style of the neighborhood. While teardowns can be challenging for neighbors to live through, he said they always increase property values, particularly when their size and style blend with the neighborhood.

It will be interesting to watch what goes in the lot, which is tiny itself, only one-third of an acre.

Do you think builders are still putting up "monster houses" or have they learned to build to scale? What do you think about teardowns? Is it surprising they're still happening, given the economy? Or are they only happening in certain areas?