Home Based Coffin Manufacturer Spooks Neighbors

You try to do an honest day’s work in a home based business and the next thing you know, the neighbors start complaining according to the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.

In our part of the country, people are turning to wooden coffins in lieu of expensive metal caskets … they still are required to buy a concrete vault of course so the materials for the coffin are relatively immaterial, except for the cost involved.

But local people sometimes find it’s cheaper to import wooden coffins from China.

I’m glad to see this individual seems to have found a profitable niche.

He’s a bit dismayed by the process however…

Mr. Shown, a full-time design engineer building fuel cells for Acumentrics in Westwood, said it would have been easy to start the second career from his basement without going through town channels. “You try to do the right thing, and you get beat up three times for it,� said Mr. Shown, who obtained a special permit from the Planning Board on Nov. 15, in a 6-1 decision.

The Planning Board also set a number of restrictions on Mr. Shown’s venture:

•He can’t hire any employees, he must get an annual Fire Department inspection, and he must have a dust collection system internal to the basement. He also has to pick up wood and deliver the product himself.

“And when I get the equipment I need to plane and surface wood, they want me to call them back and have them come down and do another sound test,� Mr. Shown said.

•There are also limitations to when he can work: 6 to 10 p.m. weekdays, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekends.

•He is limited to 10 coffins per month.

“I can live with� the restrictions, Mr. Shown said. “If I am consistently making the 10 a month, I would definitely find alternative means of going out and finding a bigger spot.�

Photo Courtesy Telegram.com