Inquirer: Good news, no news for Benning Hills property

We find ourselves back in Benning Hills this week, where a Concerned Reader is tired of living next to an apparently abandoned dump of a house.

Our reader lives on Penn Avenue near a house that has not only been abandoned, but also has been condemned by the city. She said it's had the Big Red Ds spray-painted on it for a few years, but the city has done nothing about it.

But it's not the house itself that irritates her. It's the terribly overgrown yards (front and back) that breed varmints of the animal kind and provide cover for varmints of the human kind, who have been seen sneaking into the old house for nefarious purposes, one must assume.

It's scary sometimes, she said.

I rode out there and had a look. Yep, it's a demo. But otherwise, it doesn't look as bad as most such houses. It's a brick house with what appears to be a decent roof and no apparent broken windows or doors hanging open. (The weeds, however, are hip-high.)

I have no idea what the back looks like, because that would be trespassing, and I don't want to get my picture in one of those galleries on our website. And similarly, I have no idea what the interior looks like. There might be more copper in a roll of pennies than there is left in the house.

As I understand it, the rule for demolition is that if city inspectors estimate

that it will cost more than half of the fair market value of the house to bring it up to code, then it usually gets the Big Red D. This house is valued at $33,600, and anyone who has done any renovation knows you can blow through $17,000 before lunch.

And there's another issue. While looking into the property, I discovered that the owner died more than a year ago. On top of that, the owner owned almost 50 houses in Muscogee County, according to property tax records, so I fear we might be getting more calls on his houses.

But like our reader said, the house is a problem waiting to be solved, but it's the yards that are the real problem in the meantime.

The yard would be Special Enforcement's area, and I have some good news there. Special Enforcement Officer Brandt Poole said he has spoken with our Concerned Reader and, because the owner is deceased, it eliminates a lot of the legal hoops the city has to jump through to go on the property and cut the grass and weeds. So they can get right on it.

He said his department has taken pictures of the problems and are contracting the clean-up work out as we speak.

As for the demolition, I cannot find any record of the house's address being on any list of houses that Columbus Council has actually approved funds for demolition, so that could be months (many months) away. I'll keep working on that.

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

This story was originally published September 20, 2015 at 10:53 PM with the headline "Inquirer: Good news, no news for Benning Hills property ."