The Health Hazard Next Door

My neighbor's house, infested and garbage-filled, has been condemned. But nobody will do anything about it.

by John Davidson

[ bureaucracy inaction ]

Neal Santos OOH-OOH THAT SMELL: The house on the left is "on the list."

On a weekday last month my wife and I awoke at 5 a.m. to a violent pounding on our front door. We opened the door to two police officers in SWAT gear, who showed us a picture of our reclusive next-door neighbor and asked, "Is this your neighbor?"

It was a bench warrant unit. Apparently our neighbor had been hiding out.

We had long suspected something wasn't right next door. The house — a row home in Port Richmond — was always dark and had newspaper taped over the windows and mail slot, and sometimes a stale, rancid odor hung outside the front door. They never set any garbage out. We joked that they were storing bodies in the basement or something.

So the SWAT guys kicked in the front door and disappeared into the house. A couple minutes later a tall guy in his mid-30s came stumbling out and the cops came out behind him holding their arms over their faces, gagging. They slammed him onto the hood of a nearby car, punched him in the kidneys a few times, slapped on handcuffs, threw him into an unmarked SUV and sped away.

It wasn't long before we discovered why the cops had come out gagging. The broken door stood open, revealing the horrifying interior of the house: bags of rotting garbage piled 4 feet high, rats and mice and feral cats everywhere, flies swarming around piles of human feces.

We realized this was why we sometimes heard mice scrambling inside our walls; this was why my wife had been suffering from mold allergies and chronic illness for months; this was the source of the awful smell outside our house.

And now, with the front door ripped off, there was nothing to stop all the creatures from creeping into the street. I decided to call the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I), thinking surely if ever a house were a public-health hazard, this was it. The place needed to be cleaned out, sealed and condemned.

I called the city's much-vaunted 311 service and sat listening to a recording of Mayor Nutter for 20 minutes. Finally I got someone on the line from L&I and told my tale. Turns out the house had complaints and violations going back almost 10 years, and in 2003 L&I designated it a "dangerous property." The guy said it was "on the list" to be inspected.

"Great," I said, "so you guys can send someone out here to take a look and seal the place, since it's already on the list, right?"

"Actually, no. If it's on the list, there's nothing we can do. It's on the list, see, so they'll get to it eventually."

"But you said the house was condemned in 2003, and people are still living there, and now the door's been ripped off. Can't you move it up on the list? It's a public-health hazard, you know."

"Oh no, we can't move it up on the list. I've added your complaint to the file here but that's all I can do."

"Really? There's nothing you can do?" 

A pause, then: "Tell you what, call 911 and tell them exactly what you told me. But also tell them that you think you smell a dead body. They'll send a unit out to inspect the place right away. They have to."

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

The truth was, I didn't smell a dead body and I didn't want to lie to the police. But I knew if I stopped now the rotting house next door would fester forever, our neighbors not being the kind of people who call L&I or 911. I decided I would call, but wouldn't say I smelled a dead body.

I haven't called 911 very many times in my life, and the situation was a bit difficult to explain. I was worried I might get in trouble just for calling.

The operator answered and I said: "This isn't an emergency — but let me explain!" And I told my tale, again.

"Ah, well you need to call L&I. They handle these kind of things."

"But I already called L&I and they told me to call 911. They said it's a public health hazard, it's basically an emergency."

"Well there's nothing we can do. Call L&I."

I knew I was on the verge of being stopped dead in the water. My mind raced.

After a short pause, I said: "Well, I think I smell a dead body over there."

I thought I heard the operator sigh. "All right, we'll send a unit over."

The cop that showed up 15 minutes later was a dead ringer for Deputy Raineesha Williams from Reno 911!. She took one step inside the door, peered in and backed away. "Uh-uh, I ain't going up in there. No way. That's despicable."

The officer was sympathetic to my cause. She said she'd never seen a house that far gone, didn't even know a crack addict or a homeless person who would step foot inside, and agreed it was a public-health hazard.

So she did the only thing a Philadelphia police officer in that position can: She spent the next half-hour on the phone with L&I, and they hung up on her. Eventually she gave up and said that her hands were tied until she talked to the homeowner — the mother of the guy who was arrested — and would come back later that afternoon.

Hours later she came back with another officer, and they spoke with the lady who owned and somehow lived in the house. After a few minutes the woman went back inside her rotting, rat-infested row home and the cops told me there was nothing more they could do. They had made their report to L&I, but their report carried no more weight than my complaint did; they couldn't force L&I to come out and make an inspection even if the house was a public-health hazard, which they agreed it was.

It was a matter of politics now, they said, and we should start calling our city councilman (Frank DiCicco) to put pressure on L&I to condemn and seal the house. Call the Mayor's Office, too, they said. The more people call and annoy them about this, the more likely they are to get L&I out here.

So that's what I did, and got the neighbors to do the same. About three weeks went by, during which time the lady had her door replaced, but did not take the garbage out. Then one day a bright orange L&I notice appeared on the door: "Danger, keep out. This house condemned by order of the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections."

I called the city to see what was the normal procedure for such cases. A city spokesperson told me that L&I determines what to do on a case-by-case basis, with categories ranging from "nuisance" to "eminently dangerous." As for our neighbor's house being listed as "dangerous" in 2003, I was told that the city "can't answer for a previous administration's policies."

The neighbors said a similar notice was posted at the house back in 2003 but was ripped down after a few days. Sure enough, this most recent notice was ripped down a few days later.

So I'll have to keep the pressure on L&I and Councilman DiCicco for the time being. After all, I could have sworn I smelled a dead body the other day.

(editorial@citypaper.net)