43
Youngstown vows to demolish house crumbling on neighbor's property
YOUNGSTOWN
A dilapidated North Side house that had large portions of a brick chimney fall off its roof in a windstorm is coming down as soon as today or Friday.
Paul Brown of Mineral Ridge said he was leaving 156 Halleck St. – where he was raised and is still the home of his 85-year-old mother – on Tuesday when about half of a 6-foot chimney next door at 160 Halleck St. crumbled and fell to the ground about 8 feet from him.
It was the latest problem with that house, vacant for almost a decade.
“The slate has been falling off the roof for three years,” Brown said. “In 2013, a piece fell off and hit me in the hand. When the chimney fell apart, the bricks hit my mother’s house, and several of them sunk into the ground.”
While the 98-year-old house has been stripped both inside and outside, and is falling apart, the city has continued to mow the lawn.
“There’s vacant houses all over, but if this one can do bodily harm, something should be done,” Brown said.
After Brown’s complaint, the city is doing something.
Contacted Wednesday by The Vindicator about 160 Halleck, Abigail Beniston, the city’s code-enforcement and blight-remediation specialist, said as soon as the electricity can be disconnected, the house will be demolished. That could come as soon as today or Friday and by early next week at the latest, she said.
Before the demolition, a contractor hired by the city will take down a second chimney, about 12 feet high, by hand, Beniston said.
That other chimney could easily give way during demolition and land on another nearby house, she said.
The vacant house has been on the city’s demolition list for years.
“With the latest problems, it’s moved to the top of the list,” Beniston said.
When told of the impending demolition, Brown said, “That sounds good. I appreciate that. My mother’s been afraid to sit in her dining room for years. She’s afraid the chimney would collapse and crash into her dining room.”
Who to call: If you know of a city house that presents a danger to neighbors and you have not gotten a response from the city, call reporter David Skolnick at 330-747-1471, ext. 1264.