My Vacant House Project - Page 2

FairHamilton · #1 Posted **Jun 4, 2008, 8:29 PM**

Well so far, Bernie Morelli is failing to impress. After 1.5 weeks of no response to my letter, I decided to follow-up with a call to Bernie.

When I called I got Bernie's voicemail, and here's the response to my voicemail asking him to call me (leaving daytime and evening phone numbers):
Paul, thank you for your phone call and message. First of all, congratulations on moving to the Ward and the City of Hamilton. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any further issues or concerns. By copy of this note, I will forward your concerns to Carmela Vidic, Coordinator of Municipal Law Enforcement, for review/response.
Regards,

Bernie Morelli,
Councillor, Ward 3.

Though I appreciate the direction to Carmela (contact name and email is always good), I did ask for him to contact me by phone......... Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like I got a bit of the 'brush off', and I certainly get the feeling that my issue would have been completely ignored had I not shown the drive to follow-up by phone.

Well Bernie's going to get to know that I'm not one to give up easily, he'll know my name and perhaps regret I purchased a home in his ward......

raisethehammer · #2 Posted **Jun 5, 2008, 2:58 AM**

many people have tried to get him to care. I applaud your efforts, but caution you to not waste too much time on him. Hopefully you find someone at city staff who will work with you and make your time productive.
Morelli won't. He hasn't for decades.

FairHamilton · #3 Posted **Jun 5, 2008, 12:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

many people have tried to get him to care. I applaud your efforts, but caution you to not waste too much time on him. Hopefully you find someone at city staff who will work with you and make your time productive.
Morelli won't. He hasn't for decades.

He may not care, but he's going to be aware and unable to ignore my project

BrianE · #4 Posted **Jun 5, 2008, 1:43 PM**

Your response from Morelli seems odd to me. I sent a single email to him about supporting light rail and asking about a dog park in Gage Park and he phoned me on a Saturday of all days to talk about my questions.

Maybe he wasn't busy that week.

It's definitely odd that your getting a bit of a brush off considering his campaign focussed on cracking down on crime and enforcing property standards.

raisethehammer · #5 Posted **Jun 5, 2008, 1:58 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianE

Your response from Morelli seems odd to me. I sent a single email to him about supporting light rail and asking about a dog park in Gage Park and he phoned me on a Saturday of all days to talk about my questions.

Maybe he wasn't busy that week.

It's definitely odd that your getting a bit of a brush off considering his campaign focussed on cracking down on crime and enforcing property standards.

campaign?? when, back in 1980??
he hasn't run a campaign in years.
He didn't even bother to show up at the only in-ward debate during the last campaign.

FairHamilton · #6 Posted **Jun 5, 2008, 3:07 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianE

Your response from Morelli seems odd to me. I sent a single email to him about supporting light rail and asking about a dog park in Gage Park and he phoned me on a Saturday of all days to talk about my questions.

Odd to me as well, especially when I thought I was being 'civic minded'. Maybe he's a dog owner...........

Anyways the wheels are now turning. Email from today:
Councillor Morelli and Mr. Tetley

We will input your complaint and have an inspector investigate.

Judy: please action and cc inspector a copy of this email and to report back to me with an update.

thanks
Carmela

FairHamilton · #7 Posted **Jun 6, 2008, 2:48 PM**

Today's update.

Headed to the bus this morning and low and behold there's an official looking notice taped to the front door of the house. Overjoyed, I bound up the house's front steps, a dangerous move since the stairs sag with every normal step..

As I had to catch a bus, I didn't have much time to read it thoroughly. But, it's a notice from the city to remove garbage (funny that's not one on my problems, the property seems pretty garbage free) and to cut any vegetation over 8" in height. Must be completed by June 8th!!!!

Not a result of my complaint (I was saving that one to be my mid-late June complaint), but a good start to making this a thorn in the owner's side.

Since the owner simply pays the property taxes year in, and year out, without apparent pain. One of my goals is to increase his pain and have many more dollars added to his tax bill from all the maintenance and repairs the city does on the property and puts on the tax bill. I'm confident he won't do the work, so I counting on the city to do it, and do it at city rates.

FairHamilton · #8 Posted **Jun 21, 2008, 3:06 AM**

My latest update:

Hi Judy,

I'm writing this email, because a few minutes ago (10:50pm) I again witnessed 2 raccoons scaling the rear staircase and enter through the holes in the rear flat roof.

Can you please update me to the status of the investigation on this site.

Thanks!

FairHamilton · #9 Posted **Jul 6, 2008, 3:04 PM**

On Friday July 4th, action was taken (by the city I assume) to secure the house with plywood.

Holes in flat roof covered with plywood, broken window covered with plywood, hole in garage roof, front garage door and broken garage window covered with plywood.

So the squeaky wheel does get the grease.........

matt602 · #10 Posted **Jul 8, 2008, 8:06 PM**

And a saga comes to a close.

Good stuff.

FairHamilton · #11 Posted **Jul 8, 2008, 8:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by matt602

And a saga comes to a close.

Good stuff.

LOL, not even close to a close. That's just the first step on a journey that I feel will have 1,000 miles............ The house is still sitting there rotting, and there are more bylaw violations.

If the owners are going to let this happen it's my goal to punish them financially by having the city add all kinds of work to their tax bill.

So far since June 1st.
1. Clearing of debris and cutting of vegetation (weeds).
2. Securing the house with about 8 or 9 sheets of plywood

I've got a few more bylaw violations coming down the pike, and Judy did say: "let us know if there are any more problems."

raisethehammer · #12 Posted **Jul 9, 2008, 2:08 AM**

I guess I should chime in here.
I've been in touch with McHattie's office about a 'mostly' vacant house on our street.
the owner comes by for about an hour or two each month.
no lawn cutting, no snow shoveling etc....
the weeds are 5 feet tall now.
I'll let you know what happens. It's a unique case because the home is owned, and sometimes he shows up (usually in the middle of the night for half an hour or so). it's not entirely vacant.
Although, exterior windows haven't been closed in years. the living room light has been on for 3 years.
many rooms are unfinished.
The neighbourhood cats love the place.

I'll keep you posted.

FairHamilton · #13 Posted **Jul 10, 2008, 2:06 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

I guess I should chime in here.
I've been in touch with McHattie's office about a 'mostly' vacant house on our street.
the owner comes by for about an hour or two each month.
no lawn cutting, no snow shoveling etc....
the weeds are 5 feet tall now.
I'll let you know what happens. It's a unique case because the home is owned, and sometimes he shows up (usually in the middle of the night for half an hour or so). it's not entirely vacant.
Although, exterior windows haven't been closed in years. the living room light has been on for 3 years.
many rooms are unfinished.
The neighbourhood cats love the place.

I'll keep you posted.

Vacant, or not 8" is the bylaw height for lawn vegetation, grass or weeds. I'd start there with bylaw. They'll post a notice with a 5 day deadline, and my suggestion is on the morning of the 6th day call the bylaw officer and inform them the lawn is uncut. They should come to cut it on day 7 and put the charge on the property tax bill.

flar · #14 Posted **Jul 9, 2008, 2:10 AM**

^^grow house?

raisethehammer · #15 Posted **Jul 10, 2008, 2:43 AM**

yea, I told them about the 5 foot tall grass.
I should look on the front door. Getting past all the boxes and junk on the porch will be a task.

raisethehammer · #16 Posted **Aug 25, 2008, 1:55 AM**

well, this weed/grass bylaw stuff is slow as heck..the city came by and posted a notice and came back on the deadline 5 days later. He was out there working away that morning as we expected.
I'm not sure if they gave him a deadline, but he's slowly working away at it...probably has half the property done now, but it's been 3 weeks. Hopefully he'll get the rest done this week.
At least it's being fixed and that's the main thing.

yea, that house on Wentworth is awesome....the lack of a yard is probably a stumbling block for a family. The huge house on Main East near Prospect was bought by a family, but it has a huge yard despite being on Main East.
I could see condos/apartments in this Wentworth House.

Duckyboy · #17 Posted **Aug 25, 2008, 2:09 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

yea, that house on Wentworth is awesome....the lack of a yard is probably a stumbling block for a family. The huge house on Main East near Prospect was bought by a family, but it has a huge yard despite being on Main East.
I could see condos/apartments in this Wentworth House.

Yea, the Main/Prospect one is another monster. Great, great house with a mother of a yard AND a coach house in the back. But Main is a little busy, and having a Time Hortons Drive Thru right next door is a little tough. Too bad that place wasn't set back about 20-30 feet; it would make a huge difference.

flar · #18 Posted **Aug 25, 2008, 2:26 AM**

89 Wentworth would be great for condos. That's one of the reasons why a lot of those beautiful old Victorians sit empty, they're too big. That and all those old windows and the crazy roof and everything else that comes with 100 year old houses makes them expensive to fix.

It's a catch 22 for this particular house: it's not desirable because the apartments that hem it in aren't desirable, and the apartment buildings aren't desirable because there's a vacant mansion next door.

FairHamilton · #19 Posted **Aug 25, 2008, 1:08 PM**

And the apartment building next to the house is empty as well, right? I'm guessing the same owner on both buildings.

Quote:

well, this weed/grass bylaw stuff is slow as heck..the city came by and posted a notice and came back on the deadline 5 days later. He was out there working away that morning as we expected.

Once a notice for grass/weeds is issued, the tenants/owner has 5 business days in which to comply. If they come back and the owner is working on the lawn my understanding is the notice/complaint dies, whether he finishes the job, or not.....

That is, if you can get the city to respond to a complaint. I issued my complaint to the house 2 doors up from us on July 23rd, and here we are 2 follow-ups (3rd happening today) and 1 month later without any action on the city's part.

FairHamilton · #20 Posted **Sep 16, 2008, 1:56 PM**

54 days and repeated follow-ups, to finally get to success. There is now a notice on the houses front door, 5 days to cut the weeds.