Abandoned homes are a big problem in our city and a nuisance to neighbors living next to them.
Rodents, roaches, and rats are crawling around, and neighbors in Cleveland's Ward 12 say they believe there’s one house that's responsible. The house, on Worley Avenue, has been sitting vacant for nearly a year.
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After they’ve reached out to city officials and the health department over and over, and still have not seen any change, the neighbors contacted News 5 Cleveland.
“Oh my God. it's been horrible, it's been a disaster," said Jacqueline Ladson, who lives next to the abandoned home.
For months, Ladson says she's been trying to get the piles of trash and clutter in the back of the home cleaned up. The mess is just feet away from her house.
“It's just ridiculous, and then, of course, my property value goes down everybody's property value goes down,” she said.
The previous owner of the Worley Avenue house said sold the property a year ago and left, but when News 5 arrived to check this out, we found him rushing to clean up the place. He claimed a friend hired him to clean up.
But this is just one property causing problems, out of the 25 homes near Ladson's, we counted five of them abandoned.
"I mean as women, we have fea: of who's in the house next-door," said Twila Armstead, who lives across the street from Ladson.
When we questioned Councilman Anthony Branctelli, he said, he’s working on it.
“There's no question, the property owner has been truly negligent," he said. "There's been an ongoing problem completing our neighborhood."
Branctelli showed News 5 records of the multiple citations on the property next to Ladson's home. He says the next steps are to bring litigation against the current owner, Investco Management Company, LLC, which is located out of state.
We reached out to that company and are still waiting to hear back.
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