By JOE PINCHOT and JUDI SWOGGER
NEWS On the Green
A place to call home
When Patty Phillips and her family moved into the house at the corner of Nicholas and Cleveland streets in Masury in the late ’50s, it had “the ugliest walls,” she said.
“My bedroom had pink- and purple-painted stripes,” said Phillips, who was in third grade when she moved in.
Her parents, Margaret and James Cecil Phillips, made many changes to the house over the years, and it served many purposes for the family. At one time, Phillips, her parents, two sisters, a brother and her grandfather lived there.
“There was an old wringer washer in the basement, an old mangle (for ironing large items such as sheets and tablecloths),” Phillips said. “There were always a lot of spiders in the basement (too) – daddy longlegs.”
8176 Nicholas Street
There also was a bar in the basement, and it became the office for mom’s party rental business, At Your Service.
“We used to have to wash the snack sets, linens, glassware and silverware” before they could play, said Phillips, who now lives in Hubbard.
Play, they did. There were lots of kids in the neighborhood and they rolled down the sloping front yard and played flag football. There was an in-ground pool for a while, until her brother, Jimmy, who could not yet swim, fell in the deep end and had to be pulled out by a neighbor.
“Dad bulldozed the pool after that,” Phillips said.
Apple, pear and cherry trees in the yard provided plenty of snacks.
Mom remodeled the house in the early ’70s.
“She had custom drapes made,” Phillips said. “Completely gutted the kitchen. It was gorgeous.”
In the early ’80s, around the time mom passed away, dad enclosed the porch with great windows to gaze off to the west.
Later on, Phillips lived there on her own, taking in friends who needed a place to stay, “Kind of like a wayward home.”
After dad remarried, he sold the house.
“I loved the house,” said Phillips. “It was a nice, warm house. It was a nice place to grow up.”
It’s not so warm anymore
Phillips’ old home is now vacant and could easily be called abandoned. The door on the north side is off its hinges, rendering the house open to the curious.
Every community has its share of vacant and abandoned homes, and Brookfield is no exception. A drive around town showed there might be upwards of 60 vacant or abandoned homes – homes with no signs of life.
Peter Ross, Brookfield code enforcement officer, said he does not keep an official list of abandoned homes.
8136 Diamond St.
“In my mind, I have a list of about two dozen that I’ve been watching,” he said.
Thanks to a grant obtained by the Trumbull County Land Bank, the township late last year took down nine homes.
“Those were the worst of the worst,” Ross said. “A couple of those were getting complaints from the police, people hanging out in them.”
Notified that the Nicholas Street house is open, Ross said he has sent the owner a letter asking that the home be secured.
“If he doesn’t cooperate, that will be on my, if there is a next list to the land bank, that’s gonna be right at the top there,” Ross said.
Turning the screw… Hammering down
Ross said he responds to complaints. So, if there is an abandoned home that no one seems to care about, he typically lets it be.
“If we get complaints then I’m always checking them out,” he said.
The township is limited in what it can do, both in terms of authority and money, Ross said. Ross enforces the exterior property maintenance code, so he looks for tall grass, open doors and animals going in and out. If there is garbage in the yard or leaking sewage, he can notify the Trumbull County Combined Health District, which has jurisdiction over those issues.
“Taking it before the health commission, that gets people’s attention,” he said, adding that the health department is “excellent to deal with.”
8235 Superior St.
Ross initiates an enforcement action with an “in case you weren’t aware” letter that explains what the issue is and asks the owner to take care of it in 45 days.
“If they ignore me, we send them another one certified and we threaten them with court action or take it to the trustees to declare it a nuisance,” Ross said.
“If they show me some progress, that they’re interested in taking care of it, then I kind of ease up,” he said. “After that, we can go to court. That doesn’t always dissuade people. If someone’s out of town or out of the area, they don’t even show up. The club of the demo is the thing.”
Trumbull County Eastern District Court presides over citations issued by Ross. He has taken a few people to court, but the punishment for conviction is usually a small fine of $20.
If an owner does not respond to a letter or notice that charges have been filed, there’s not much the township can do. In some cases, the owner is out of the area. Sometimes, the homeowner has died and the heirs are not interested in taking care of the property. Sometimes, the owner has health issues that prevent him or her from taking any action.
5589 Amy Boyle Road
Ross noted that the owner of a house at Warner and Amy Boyle roads is in a nursing home. A door is open, windows are broken and there are items such as a grill, a barrel cooker and a cart sitting in the yard.
“I’m gonna have to do something with that one,” Ross said. “That one’s in pretty bad shape. One of the neighbors told me the interior is bad. I can’t go in. If it’s open, I’ll look inside. I’m hesitant to go inside for a lot of reasons.”
NEWS On the Green sent a letter to the owner but it was returned by the post office as not deliverable. NEWS On the Green sent letters to four other owners of apparently abandoned homes – including the one at Nicholas and Cleveland – but got no responses.
The township trustees can declare a house as unsecure and have it boarded up, but that costs money the trustees have to be willing to put out with little or no expectation to get back. The same is true if the township wants to demolish a structure, which can cost several thousands dollars. The cost can be placed against the owners’ taxes, but that still is no guarantee of repayment, Ross said.
Occasionally, township pressure will prompt an owner to have a house demolished. Ross said he had originally sent the land bank a list of 14 homes for the most recent round of demos, but the owners of five took care of them.
So, Ross will keep an eye on trouble spots and hope the land bank comes back with more demolition money. He said he has a list of 15 to 20 homes that, if money becomes available, could be torn down.
