ST. LOUIS – A St. Louis woman ran into one road block after another, trying to get the city to act regarding an abandoned home next door to her. She said the property on South Grand Avenue had become a drug house.
Tonia Jones said the home hadn’t been boarded up securely, so people kept breaking in and using drugs. Fights occurred at the property. The back of the building was set ablaze at one point.
Jones tried getting action from city hall with no luck. She couldn’t even get her own alderman moving.
FOX 2 reached out to Alderman Shane Cohn (Ward 3), who said he had been actively trying to solve the problem and promised to do more.
“I think right now it’s abating that nuisance activity,” he said. “It’s (about) getting it secure, and certainly trying to address the ongoing issues with the owner through our legal processes.”
Jones said living next door to the abandoned house was a nightmare.
“We even have the problem of homelessness—human feces,” she said. “I got boxes around the perimeter of my unit because of the rats and bugs coming from this unit. It’s horrific and we can’t keep living like this.”
Alderman Cohn promised more action from the St. Louis Building Division.
“They’ve been boarding it up just where it’s been broken into versus board up the entire first floor which is their standard practice for vacant buildings,” he said. “And so, I’ve asked them to go ahead and do that and so, hopefully, that will be done this week.”
The Building Division did just that. We went back out Saturday to talk with Jones again. Sure enough, the entire house was boarded front and back. She said she feels a lot better now.
“I know what got this done when you came along and put this camera in this darkness; literally, the lights were on and they had to respond; somebody had to do something but it’s sad that it took that!”