1996 CC Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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2 One of the tenants owned a big dog. He placed a padlock on the outside of his door and locked it whenever he and his wife left. On one occasion I received an emergency call from the apartment building stating there was water leaking from the ceiling of one of the apartments. Since I needed to enter the padlocked apartment to check out the water problem, I had to tear the hasp off the door to get in. I found the leak in the bathroom, but I also found two closets full of marijuana plants 4 feet high growing under blue lights. Shortly after my discussion with these tenants they decided to leave. There were numerous other problems in the building including runaway kids, wild drinking parties, and prostitution. It was common for the police to be called to the building four to five times a week. The inside of the building was infested with cockroaches and there were several cats and dogs in the building. During remodeling, a full cat skeleton was found underneath the floorboards. The outside was an eyesore with all the junk cars, pigeon droppings, and numerous cats digging in the garbage. When I started remodeling the first apartment, I pulled off the first sheet of paneling and found literally hundreds of live roaches. When we first started advertising to rent the apartments, people would ask the location of the building. When they learned it was the building next to the school (or "roach city" as it was sometimes referred to), they would no longer be interested because of its bad reputation. The company that owned the coin operated washer and dryer was ready to remove them, because the change boxes had been broken into several times with crowbars. In addition to the long list of items I needed to repair, I found another problem in the basement which wasn't even on my list. It was an old cheese vat 4 feet high by 6 feet wide and 14 feet long that was used as an open septic tank with the raw sewage running into it and an overflow pipe going into the city sewer line. A neighbor, Chuck Underwood, told me that on hot days there was a terrible smell coming from the building. I continued to clean up the outside of the building and found I had a major problem with bees and pigeons. I put poly over the holes in the sofit to keep the pigeons out, but this didn't resolve the problem. I was told by one of the school custodians, he had taken a B.B. gun and killed several pigeons at the Catholic Church in Centerville. I bought a RR gun and the first night I used it at the apartment I was held up by the police since they thought I had a rifle. When they determined it was a B.B. gun the officers couldn't decide if there was a city ordinance against shooting aRB. gun in Centerville. I never used the gun again. I returned it to the place of purchase the next day. The following Monday, the police chief called me to apologize for the poor manner in which the whole incident was handled, and at a later date the city council passed a city ordinance regarding B.B. guns specifically. Just this past week I learned this incident is still in the police file, but the apology by the police chief was not included. Listed below are several reasons why I feel the city of Centerville has greatly benefited from my efforts and hard work at the apartment building on Progress Road. t 1) There are no cats or dogs permitted in the building. 2) It is a clean building. The cockroach problem was eliminated 12 years ago.