Danbury Receives Abandoned House Reports

As the snows melt, garbage appears underneath, and the city starts to shift from a fixing pothole mode into a garbage and abandoned house mode.

Danbury residents are reporting an increased number of abandoned houses to the city's 311 telephone system, which are then passed on to the city's Unified Neighborhood Inspection Team, (UNIT.) Jeff Preston answers the city's 311 help line, and he works to find the home's owners to clean them up.

Preston called one bank Tuesday to make sure it would look after the house it recently acquired on Stadley Rough Road. In another case, he tried to find the person who inherited a formerly abandoned home in the same neighborhood. The inherited house had languished for several years in probate court.

"After a while, we know who to call or we know which banks take an interest," Preston said. "Some banks won't do a thing without something in writing. Once it's for sale, we just call the Realtor on the sign. They come right out."

The UNIT worries about abandoned houses, because they attract crime. Each spring the city sees an uptick in abandoned houses. Abandoned houses become fire hazards and they hurt an entire neighborhood. A year ago, Danbury discovered four abandoned houses in the same week.