a brick house indeed. only in america.
in calif they nail up some 2x4's tack on some chicken wire and sprary cmenty stuff on the outside.
on the inside they nail plasterboard and you have a house. it will stand rain and wind, but if you are on a hill, as you can see on your tv today, eventually your house will slide down the hill like jack and jill,
i didn;t know i was a poet, even 3 months after it had stopped raining and without an earthquake.
the fact that the little earthquakes might have something to do with it, the california earthquake association, a kind of assigned risk policy, won't pay squat because you can't prove the house sliding down the hill is related to any specific earthquake.