Volunteers clean up vacant home before YNDC restoration begins

YOUNGSTOWN

There was a huge, everything-must-go, clearance today on the city’s South Side.

Living room furniture, dining room furniture, kids’ and adults’ clothes, toys, crutches, leaves, trash.

Wait... leaves and trash?

Yep, everything was packed up and gone.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. sponsored a cleanup day at a vacant house on Pineview Avenue, just off Glenwood Avenue. It was part of an effort to rid the Idora Neighborhood of blight and turn the abandoned house into a restored home ready for a new owner, said Ian J. Beniston, YNDC executive director.

About 60 volunteers showed up to help with ridding the house of its contents and cleaning up the outside of the property.

The detached garage was filled with hints about the family that once lived there, including trash bags of clothes, a Sponge Bob Square Pants book bag, a kids’ basketball hoop and several other toys. Even a pair of crutches. They all went into the trash bin, as did bags and bags of leaves that were raked up from the yard.

Beniston said YNDC recently acquired the property through the Mahoning County Land Bank with the intention of gutting and rehabilitating it so it can be sold to a new owner who will call it home.

The house sits on a double lot and includes an outdoor brick oven, which Beniston said will help make it attractive to buyers once the renovation is complete and it’s on the market.

“This is a solid house,” Beniston said, standing outside the two-story structure. “It’s probably going to need a new roof, but it’s otherwise solid and it’s going to be beautiful when we get done renovating it. There’s no reason a house like this should be vacant.”

Read more about the house and today's effort in Sunday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.