Danbury Uncovers 10 New Abandoned Houses

Once Danbury finds a house abandoned, the UNIT and 311 Public Service Representative Jeff Preston work to figure out who is responsible for taking care of it.

In the spring and summer, people see uncut grass. The front door or back door mysteriously opens up, but no cars are parked there. The neighbors start calling the city.

Sometimes people leave a house, put their furniture on the lawn, lock up and drive away. Sometimes the first sign the house is abandoned is the fact no one is mowing the lawn.

"A couple of years ago, we didn't have an idea of where to send it," said Shawn Stillman, UNIT coordinator. The UNIT is Danbury's unified neighborhood inspection team, which is in charge of enforcing the city's blight ordinance. "Now, because of Jeff, we know who to call."

Preston (Jeff) answers the city's 311 help line, and that means he hears about abandoned houses every week. He said he learned over the last two years who to call and how to get a house taken care of by a bank or its property managers.

An abandoned house falls squarely in the UNIT's domain, not so much for the uncut lawn, but because an abandoned house attracts vagrants, drug activity and other crimes.

"None of the companies really care," Stillman said. "It isn't in their back door. They don't care. As best we can, we follow up with the banks."

Stillman said the city works with the squeeky wheel theory. Stillman or Preston keep calling the bank until somebody comes out, mows the lawn or starts locking the doors. Open doors are open invitations to crime.

"Our first step is we go out to the address and confirm the problem. We look for garbage and we make sure it's secure. Safety trumps everything," Stillman said. That means an open house can be sealed by the city or a health code violation (piled up garbage, rats, vermin) can be ordered cleaned up and the property liened by the city. "An open house becomes a target for criminal mischief."

"In the mean time, Jeff is doing all the other leg work," Stillman said.

The city received a call about 10 East Hayestown Road last week, and a neighbor, who declined to comment, said the man who owned the abandoned house was very helpful and she was extremely sorry he lost the house.

"It could happen to you or me," she said. The woman declined to give her name. "He would give you the shirt off his back. I'm sorry to see it happen."

Danbury won a court judgement in May forcing an absentee landlord to tear down his long abandoned and vacant apartment building at 30 Rowan St. The deadline for action was June 15, and nothing happened. A neighbor to that house, Rodney Stevenson, said in a comment to Patch he wished the city had let him know his next-door-neighbor, which dropped roofing materials on his yard, was finally being demolished.

"I love how the city notified my family on the date of the demolition I see hazmat suits in our future," Stevenson wrote in a comment to Patch on June 10.

That particular piece of land is seriously under water.

Danbury's Tax Office reports the property taxes are owed since 2007 for a total sum of $22,473.17. It also reports, however, the water and sewer fees, plus water and sewer liens, plus water and sewer interest charges on the property stand at $155,147.75. That means, before the cost of demolition, the city is owed $177,620.92. Danbury Realtors joke that a downtown building lot approved for two units might be worth something, but, on the other hand, in this housing market, they also might be required to pay someone to buy it. No one thinks it is worth nearly $200,000. Maybe $50,000, Danbury Patch wrote in a May story outlining this parcel's problems.

For Jeff Preston, all the other legwork is calling banks or property management firms and getting them out to the property to keep it from pulling down the neighborhood.

Preston said he visits the assessor's office and finds out who owns the house. Then he visits the town clerk and checks the property status. That tells him which bank owns it. He calls the banks and finds out the status. He said the bank answers in a few pre-determined ways. No matter what the response is, he gets the ID number and extension of who he spoke to.

1) Thanks for the call, we'll get our team on it.

2) We have the management contract on that out to bid.

3) The foreclosure isn't complete, so we have no legal right to maintain the property yet.

4) It's under contract. It should be taken care of within two weeks.

5) We can't discuss it with you because you're not on the loan.

"In that case, what I've learned to say is, "I don't want to discuss it either. The property isn't being maintained, and there could be legal issues about this," Preston said. "It takes a lot of time. That's the biggest problem. The neighbors don't want to look at it and they live next to it."