Some stories are so ironic they seem made up. On „Radika” street in Karpoš 3, part of a building's roof structure collapsed during yesterday's storm - just three days after the court ruled that the contractor who built that very roof had worked properly and bore no responsibility.

The residents had fought a court battle with the contractor for years, claiming the roof was badly built. They hired expert witnesses and lawyers. And they lost - the court sided with the contractor, and ordered them to pay hefty court costs. Three days later, the roof they'd warned about fell and proved them right in the cruelest way possible.

The material damage is heavy, but, fortunately, there were no injuries - although, as the residents tell it, one neighbor narrowly escaped a serious injury. Jovana Stefanovska, one of the residents, described the whole situation as a catastrophe and raised a question that echoes far beyond Karpoš: „In Macedonia we survive on pure luck, while lives are lost with no one held to account.”

Her demand is direct and hard to argue with. „If the Karpoš municipality and the other municipalities don't criminally prosecute all contractors responsible for fallen roofs, with permanent revocation of licenses and a lifetime work ban, then they're amnestying that criminal offense.” In other words: if the system that let these roofs through now looks the other way, the message to every contractor is that bad construction has no price.

And here is the core of the story. It's not just about one roof and one building, but about the question of whom the institution believes - the residents who warn for years, or the contractor with lawyers. When the court rules in favor of the construction that then falls, that's not just bad luck. It's a system that demands to be trusted more than it has earned. And the next roof, somewhere in the city, is already waiting its turn.