A recent report in the Times-Picayune discusses efforts to address abandoned properties due to Hurricane Katrina including the initiation of condemnation proceedings.

As safety concerns mount, Slidell officials want to condemn properties left to rot since Katrina

Terri and Terry Caye stood in the front yard of their home on Oak Lane in Slidell and watched as their grandson played with the family dog, chasing the animal with a garden hose and, every so often, hitting his mark. The scene is almost Rockwellian, save for the rotting, abandoned houses next door.

The couple spent the week or so after Hurricane Katrina gutting the bottom floor of their house, a task that comes naturally to most residents of the Palm Lake subdivision, which is prone to flooding after the slightest of storms. The two sets of neighbors nearest the Cayes, however, did not follow suit.

The elderly woman who owns the house at 3113 Oak Lane no longer lives in the city, and her most recent tenant moved shortly before the storm, Terry Caye said. Her daughters have visited the red brick house in the interim, he said, but haven't made an effort to remove the moldy drywall or the mud still caked on the living room floor.

A couple bought the house across from the Cayes on Bonfouca Drive about a month before the storm and returned at least once to survey the damage, Terry Caye said. While the couple moved some of the waterlogged furniture into the back yard, most of the home's contents remain where the floodwaters deposited them.

Such scenes are not unusual in Slidell.

The city's Department of Building Safety has compiled a list of about 150 properties, primarily homes, that are in some form of abandonment. Officials are in the process of identifying the properties that have fallen into the greatest decay, with the worst of the worst appearing virtually untouched in the nine months since the storm.

About to come down

"I have literally had teams out walking the city to get these counts," said Mayor Ben Morris, noting that the number of worst offenders thus far totals 39. "Nothing has been done. It's like (the owners) vanished. I'm getting ready to drop the hammer."

Morris has directed his staff to start condemnation proceedings against the owners of the properties in the worst condition, which include the two adjacent to the Cayes. City Attorney Tim Mathison has identified the owners and any other interested parties through land records at the St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court's office and sent certified letters to inform them of the city's intentions.

In the meantime, officials are revisiting each of the properties on the list to determine whether any others merit condemnation, as well as whether any businesses meet the criteria.

Officials are concerned that these properties pose significant health and safety hazards, particularly with more families returning to south Slidell in recent months, a trend evidenced by the increasing number of FEMA trailers in any given neighborhood. City workers have marked homes that fall into this category with a red sticker.

Mathison said he plans to argue his case against the property owners before the City Council in June, with the owners given the opportunity to present testimony on why their homes should not be condemned. In cases where officials cannot locate the interested parties, the city will hire an attorney to represent them.

After hearing the evidence, the council either will order the owners to tear down the properties or give them a certain number of days to make repairs, Mathison said. He added that officials are hoping FEMA will pay for the Army Corps of Engineers to demolish the homes at no cost to the homeowners.

Anyone who disagrees with the council's decision may appeal the ruling to the 22nd Judicial District Court in Covington, Mathison said.

The outdoors is indoors

In some of the worst cases, doors are wide open and windows shattered, allowing easy access inside mold-infested homes. Trees have fallen through the roofs of others, sending splintered ceiling beams downward into kitchens and bedrooms, now littered with insulation and pine cones in addition to upturned furniture and shattered china.

An open front door at a green cinderblock home on Lincoln Avenue reveals a moldy mess, including untouched drywall and carpeting, and furniture flipped by the floodwaters. While it's obvious the home's residents abandoned it long ago, someone apparently lived there for a time after the storm, judging by the empty MRE bags and a nearly full case of bottled water among the scattered debris just inside the front door.

In some parts of the city, residents are treated to blocks of abandoned homes. Four houses in the 2300 block of 8th Street haven't been touched since the storm, though it appears by the absence of any furniture that three of the homes had been unoccupied for some time prior.

Three decaying homes in a row occupy the 3400 block of Front Street. While the white stucco house on the corner of Front and North streets has a relatively neat exterior, an open back door reveals a stinking kitchen replete with an open refrigerator tilted face-forward toward the floor.

The smell of gardenias in bloom can't quite mask the odor emanating from two homes in the 200 block of Sun Valley Drive, where water lines mark the walls and holes in the roof caused by fallen trees serve as makeshift skylights.

In addition to the usual health and safety hazards that abandoned properties may pose, some residents worry harm could come in different ways.

A woman who lives next door to an abandoned house on Pinetree Street said the open front door is an invitation for squatters who roam the neighborhood, looking for a place to spend the night. She said she's worried for her safety and avoids leaving her FEMA trailer out of fear that someone might break in while she's away.

Different hazards

And while the idea of living next door to an abandoned house doesn't thrill Olive Street resident Dominic Ricca, he's most concerned that one of his neighbor's leaning pine trees could fall onto his roof. A dead tree caught the pine as the storm passed, but Ricca said the tree could snap at any time, hindering his family's efforts to repair and sell their own flood-damaged home.

The vast majority of the properties on the condemnation list are homes, but at least one served the neighboring community as a church.

A healthy layer of dust covers the wooden pews at the House of Prayer on Fremaux Avenue, where moldy drywall and ruined red carpet remain in place. Several of the church's windows are broken, and the steeple that crowns the single-story building now tilts to the left.

Though officials are focusing most of their attention on properties abandoned in Katrina's wake, they are taking the opportunity to eliminate some of the blight present in the city before the storm.

Mary Savoye lives on Reine Avenue next door to a home that officials declared unsafe for human occupancy almost two years ago.

Officials covered the home's door and windows with plywood at the time but didn't clean it or remove its contents, leaving Savoye to wonder what kinds of health hazards the house must pose post-Katrina.

"I think they need to come out and quarantine it . . . before that stuff gets in the air," she said. "I don't want to end up sick."

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Slidell LA Abandoned Property Condemnations