As I was lowering a household window last month, my fingers punched right through the plastic frame as if it were cellophane.

That's not the only sign my house is showing its age. Peeling exterior stucco invited rainwater into my drywall. The weather announced itself indoors by trickling through a wall crack onto the floor tile.

Three door locks have snapped like peanut brittle. So much for the "lifetime guarantees" on the Chinese workmanship.

Serves me right for living in a wreck. If only my house weren't just 3 years old.

Building too many homes for too many fictional homesteaders led to a financial collapse. But you rarely hear about the collapse in building quality. As every victim of sulfurous Chinese drywall rot can tell you, Tampa Bay housing construction was often the work of poorly trained labor overseen by see-no-evil foremen.

Like a manic writer pounding his typewriter at 3:30 a.m., the manic building boom produced work that proved embarrassing in the light of day.

I ordered my house near the peak of real estate appreciation. A one-year builder warranty provided free fixes for the inevitable tile and wall cracks of a young home shifting in its seat. The first hint of trouble was when an electrician, visiting my house on a warranty call, derisively crumpled a ceiling light fixture and announced the builder paid less than $3 for the flimsy plastic.

I think they call it "builder's grade." If so, I'd assign it a grade of D-minus.

It's worth mentioning that my house wasn't cheap. An inside source informed me the builder made nearly $200,000 in profit from the sale. Executive bonuses were doled out, stockholders made whole, contractors richly compensated. Couldn't they have spared a few more dollars for better materials?

And better workmanship. During construction I discovered 1 inch gaps between floorboards, gaps we would feel underfoot after carpet installation. The construction manager nodded when I pointed out the flaws. On the next visit the gaps were filled, sloppily, with glue. Before I could complain again, carpeting covered the mistake.

Each trip to the attic makes a person feel like an Indian swami negotiating a bed of nails. Hundreds of nails, fired from pneumatic guns by unskilled hands, missed their mark. They protrude from two-by-fours like tetanus infections waiting to happen.

I grew up in a circa 1890s house in a small town. My parents paid $11,000 in 1968. The antique windows still glided in their frames, despite temperatures that ranged in a given year from -25 degrees to 98 degrees. Old-fashioned doorknobs didn't give us the slightest trouble.

My builder could have invested another $1,000 in durable fixtures and still profited handsomely. Was it really worth losing a customer for life? Worth the inevitable bad-mouthing that circulates like chain letters among family, friends and acquaintances?

Apparently so. The down market has discovered a harsh cure for short-term-itis. It's called bankruptcy.

James Thorner can be reached at jthorner@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3313.