40 year old building that criminally ignored maintenance. I wouldn't cite that as a cautionary tale on building cheap. Multi-tenant buildings should always have a bigger regulatory burden than single family. However, building a single family home should have most regulatory burdens removed and let homeowners take responsibility for choosing their own tradeoffs.

I'd call it a cautionary tale of favoring lower costs over being safer. It would also be outrageous and tragic if 3 kids died in a substandard home.

The problem with letting homeowners take responsibility is that most of the homeowners don't direct the building of their homes. So to ensure the homeowner has a basic understanding of what they're buying we implement minimum standards in a building code. We even have a permit process to make sure that those standards are planned for and met with inspections at various points.