Second Arson & Neighborhood Still Good

While I was watch­ing the Celtics/Bulls game, some­one set fire to the aban­doned build­ing just cater­corner from me on Holm­den Court (the alley behind my house). Either the fire start­ed back up around 3am or the arson­ist came back to fin­ish the job because the street was clogged with fire trucks. This is the sec­ond arson less than a block from me in two months, and the fifth (that I know of) with­in half a square mile from me in the last 2 years.

These last two were both “aban­doned” hous­es with squat­ters in them. Rumor has it that the bank who owned the house behind me (which was slat­ed for demo­li­tion) had the house set aflame so they could recoup as much from the prop­er­ty as pos­si­ble. Rumor also holds that some kids set the fire, or, less like­ly, some­one set fire to keep warm.

The house had been aban­doned since I moved into the neigh­bor­hood and over the course of two years it was peeled like an onion and pit­ted like an avo­ca­do. By the time whomev­er set fire to the place set fire to the place, all that was left inside the struc­ture was some crazy-look­ing linoleum.

Now, there are quite a few seri­ous prob­lems that are touched on direct­ly or tan­gen­tial­ly in this post:

  • Habit­u­al Arson
  • Fore­closed Homes
  • Squat­ters
  • Folks steal­ing sid­ing, wiring and any­thing of val­ue from aban­doned prop­er­ties
  • Crazy Linoleum

and one very good thing. Thank you Cleve­land Fire Depart­ment, you guys are great.

While the arsons are trou­bling, there is much that is great on my street and in my neigh­bor­hood. I have new neigh­bors who are ren­o­vat­ing the home next door to me, and the chil­dren who appear to own the house cater­corner from me on Holm­den Avenue are fix­ing the place up quite nice­ly.

The new Buhrer Ele­men­tary school one block away is near­ing com­ple­tion, and I just found out, will be remain­ing a Dual Lan­guage School. Now if only Deb­bie could get a job as an art teacher there, all would be set. How­ev­er, find­ing an open posi­tion in the CMSD isn’t the eas­i­est.