BOARD OF HEALTH Officials look for way to ban woman from city

The city is ready to demolish one house previously occupied by the family.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- Seven years, five houses and numerous nuisance complaints -- now health officials are looking for a way to declare one city woman a nuisance and ban her from living here.
City board of health members passed a motion Wednesday directing the law director to look into any possible way to declare a person a nuisance and no longer allowed to reside in the city.
One board member, Charles Ague, wanted to declare Lorraine Walton of 412 Idaho Ave. a nuisance immediately.
Walton does not have a listed phone number, and one is not listed on a Girard police report that advised her Aug. 12 of numerous complaints.
Police went to the Idaho Avenue home and "advised her of the numerous complaints our department has received over the past month, month and a half."
The police report mentions complaints of criminal activity by those living in the house and convicted felons staying in the house.
'Nuisance'
Ague said he has grown tired of watching the woman and her family move from home to home here, destroying property and making life uncomfortable for those living near them. He said the city has had to take on the expense of demolishing a home in which she once lived.
"This is just a nuisance. Can you imagine one person destroying five houses?" he said. "We have had to tear them down."
Ague said he has recently spoken with the landlord who currently rents to the woman. He said the landlord is going through the eviction process.
James Dobson, health commissioner, said the woman and her family are well known to the health department. He said she has been cited many times in the past for unsanitary conditions and cockroaches.
Dobson said the family has managed to damage five homes, sometimes beyond repair, in the last seven years.
"Wherever she is, as soon as she moves in, the neighbors start complaining about the family," he said. "They pretty much ruin the house and either the landlord is stuck fixing it up or, like the last one, just walk away, and we have to demolish it."
According to Dobson, the city is preparing to demolish 345 Idaho, a previous residence of the family. He said the family leaves homes with holes in the walls, fixtures torn down, filthy, odorous and filled with pests.
"Every property she goes to, we are eventually called there. I just seem to follow her from house to house," Dobson said.