Inquirer: Big cats, Midtown zombies and bad construction

This past year was an interesting one at Inquirer Central. Wildlife on the Riverwalk. Zombies in Hilton Heights. And the long-running battle between a local woman and a contractor that has no signs of being over anytime soon.

And then there were the usual dilapidated houses, trashy yards, perilous poles and bad roads that needed, and may still need, attention.

Anyway, my top three favorite episodes for 2014 were:

The Saga of Pat Grantham.

Panthers on the Riverwalk.

Zombie House.

1.) Earlier last year, Pat Grantham contracted with a local company to put up an aluminum carport attached to the side of her house. She thought he'd done a good job, so she asked if he could enclose her patio on the back of the house. She is caring for a disabled brother and thought he would enjoy sitting in the space out back.

Well, that work so far is less than impressive, and after awhile, the contractor more or less disappeared and wouldn't return Pat's phone calls.

Meanwhile, the next time it rained, she saw that water was pouring through the edge of the carport next to the house. And out back, it was flooding her patio to the point that it was almost overflowing into her house.

Then a city inspector comes out and says the carport is unstable to the point of being dangerous, and it needs to come down.

Long story short, she and the contractor, who lawyered up immediately, have gone back and forth to court a few times, and the issue is still far from settled.

As we say at Inquirer Central: Stay tuned.

2.) Back in May, I got an email from Concerned Reader Lisa, who said she and some friends were on the Chattahoochee RiverWalk and came across some kind of large tan cat. Really large.

"There were eight of us bike riding on the Riverwalk," Lisa wrote. "We saw a really strange looking animal, like a big cat. We all live in the country, and have never seen anything like this before. After researching on the internet, this Florida panther (she included a picture) looks a lot like what we saw. Have there been any other sightings in this area?"

Over the years, I've heard tales about large cats living in the wilds of Fort Benning, but I've never seen a picture or anything.

So I called Jim Ozier, a senior wildlife biologist with the Wildlife Resources Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and asked if it could have been a Florida panther Lisa and her friends saw.

"I never say never. It's not impossible," Ozier said. "You know we did have a confirmed Florida panther that was killed a little north of there a few years ago. So it's not impossible that one could come up there."

Man, did I get a flood of phone calls and emails from people who said they'd seen such a big cat at one time or another.

One, Morgan Whatley of Midland, sent me a picture of what a friend of his said was a panther-like critter caught on a motion-sensitive night vision camera.

3.) Way back in January, some Concerned Hilton Heights Readers wrote to complain about a house on Meadowview Drive. Fact is, I'd been hearing from other people about this house, so I figured it was worth a look.

The place really was a dump, but because it was in foreclosure, it was hard to get the bank to do anything quickly about it.

Well, as it turns out, it kind of was and kind of wasn't in foreclosure.

Local attorney Fife Whiteside, who wrote to me after I wrote about the house, and said it was a classic case of what the real estate and legal communities call "zombie foreclosures." It's a term that refers to properties that go into the foreclosure process, but the process is never completed.

"It fits the textbook definition of when the bank starts out to do a foreclosure and then for some reason they fail to finish it," said Whiteside, who represented the owner.

Well, long story short, Whiteside was able to get the owner, the bank and the city (which had somehow gotten sucked into the morass) to agree to allow the owner to list the property, which she did.

The good news is that the property sold and the new owner is in the process of doing renovations.

Don't you love happy endings?

Seen something that needs attention? Contact me at 706-571-8570 or mowen@ledger-enquirer.com.

This story was originally published January 4, 2015 at 10:28 PM with the headline "Inquirer: Big cats, Midtown zombies and bad construction."