Neighborhood Nuisance: Torched apartment building leaves behind a mountain of rubble

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - Neighbors living near the corner of Fulton and Winthrop streets in Toledo claim the torn apartment building has been a problem for the community since its demolition.

Residents in the community have begun piling trash on top of the rubble, turning the site into a dumping ground. People living nearby say they don’t want family and friends to see the mess when they visit for the holidays.

“It’s been abandoned for 10-plus years and now it’s turned into the city dump. People are going to take advantage of it if the city doesn’t clean it up and get it together,” said Larry Roughton, a neighbor. Beyond all the bricks and mortar of the building, you can see tires, a piano, and furniture piled up.

Roughton said people in the community spend a lot of time and money taking care of their historic homes, and they receive a lot of notices from city officials to make repairs.

He wants the city to hold its properties to the same standard.

“They want to hold everyone else accountable until it’s their problem and then they don’t wanna hold themselves accountable. Sometimes if the shoe fits on one foot then it will probably fit on the other one. So they probably should slice them both up and get the [expletive] cleaned up,” said Roughton.

Stephanie Beebe, the Director of Demolitions in Toledo said cleaning up the demolished building is at the top of her to-do list, but there are some things that have to be done first.

“We try to be as rapid as possible with that. It still means about a month is a normal timeline. The reason for that is I have to make sure that the water, sewer, gas, and electricity are all killed. And killed at the street level meeting that there’s some dig up and things like that,” says Beebe.

The city announced on Tuesday that it was awarded $ 9.8 million in state funding to demolish nuisance properties like this one.

Interim Director of Public Services Megan Robson said it will change how the city looks.

“It’s incredibly exciting, it’s going to help us demolish about 1000 properties throughout our city with the goal of us bringing all of these properties back to productive use,” said Robson.

If you have a troubled property in your community that has become a neighborhood nuisance, send an email to willie.daniely@13abc.com. Include contact info, photos, and as many details as possible.

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