It's actually simpler than you imagine. Dreamhost has their own (shitty) distro of apache and they added the "bad_httpd_conf" error to come up in the case of a domain change (so it doesn't start directing to someone elses site). Whoever runs the site (or dreamhost) just needs to hit up dreamhosts (shitty) cpanel, go to domains, and click "manage domains fix bad_httpd_conf" and its done.