{"id":14748,"date":"2024-04-15T09:14:43","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T13:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=14748"},"modified":"2024-04-15T09:14:44","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T13:14:44","slug":"home-cleanups-slowed-by-ownership-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/15\/home-cleanups-slowed-by-ownership-search\/","title":{"rendered":"Home cleanups slowed by ownership search"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding owners of deteriorating homes is often the most difficult part for Decatur officials as they attempt to get the homes cleaned up, repaired, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curt Witte, superintendent of the city’s building and zoning department, which oversees code enforcement, brought two such cases before the board of works and safety at its latest meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two are on the same street, Schirmeyer, at 728 and 1027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
City officials are struggling to contact the owner of this house at 728 Schirmeyer Street in Decatur. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of the home at 728 Schirmeyer, Witte said, \u201cWe keep sending abate (cleanup) notices to a company that supposedly owns it, but they keep coming back as undeliverable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company is located in Clearwater, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can’t locate anybody who has title to this house,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only contact his department has had, Witte said, is with Brandon Scott and Elizabeth Easterday, former tenants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Witte said the building appears to be structurally sound from the outside, and is weather tight, \u201cbut we can’t get inside\u201d for a thorough inspection. It has a new roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, for this one, the search will continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar problems exist with the home at 1027 Schirmeyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This home at 1027 Schirmeyer will soon be demolished by the city. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis one is kinda difficult,\u201d Witte said. \u201cWe’ve been dealing with it for a while. The owners are dead and the house went back to a (local) bank. The bank is saying they are wiping out everything. It’s a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Witte said NeighborLink, the Berne-based group of volunteers who will assist people, has provided some help at the home which has been condemned since February 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A daughter of the deceased owners has shown some interest in the property and the bank has dropped its foreclosure notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bank has basically washed their hands of it,\u201d City Attorney Anne Razo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After some more discussion, the board moved to have the structure demolished and the bill sent to the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOOD NEWS: There was some good news. The owner of a home at 1003 Mercer Ave. targeted for a cleanup has followed through and met the department’s demands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Finding owners of deteriorating homes is often the most difficult part for Decatur officials<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-14748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}