Neighbors hope 'wall of shame' will help improve abandoned homes
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AUBURN, Wash. -- For the past four years the home at 129 11th Street SE has been steadily slipping into disrepair.
The bank took possession of the home when the owners defaulted on their loan. Neighbor Terri Potter says the home has been nothing but trouble ever since.
"They're not maintaining it," she said of the bank. "It's got a broken, boarded-up window and now we've got people that are breaking into it and living in it, parking stolen cars behind it. Rummaging through the neighbors and stealing things."
Potter and her neighbors put locks on the basement and garage doors in an attempt to keep squatters out of the home, but the problems persist.
Paulette Boonprom said residents in the area recently called 911 when a strange car showed up outside the garage at the vacant house.
"There were police officers out here and they ran the (vehicle identification number) and it was a stolen car out of Fife," she said. "And there was wood piles that they were going to put into the house to start a fire in the fireplace."
The fireplace in the home has a gas insert, and burning wood could have touched off an explosion.
Auburn focused on the forclosure problem nine months ago, creating a website it calls the wall of shame.
The site lists 30 problem properties, and the city is working with neighbors to force banks to make changes when it can.
Wells Fargo holds the mortgage to the home that's causing so much grief for Potter and her neighbors.
"I'd like to see this house cleaned up so that it can be sold and people living in it," she said.
While Auburn puts pressure on the mortgage holders, other cities such as Tacoma are using federal grants to clean up abandoned homes or help people who are facing foreclosure.
Right now there is $44 million being distributed for those efforts across the state.
The bank took possession of the home when the owners defaulted on their loan. Neighbor Terri Potter says the home has been nothing but trouble ever since.
"They're not maintaining it," she said of the bank. "It's got a broken, boarded-up window and now we've got people that are breaking into it and living in it, parking stolen cars behind it. Rummaging through the neighbors and stealing things."
Potter and her neighbors put locks on the basement and garage doors in an attempt to keep squatters out of the home, but the problems persist.
Paulette Boonprom said residents in the area recently called 911 when a strange car showed up outside the garage at the vacant house.
"There were police officers out here and they ran the (vehicle identification number) and it was a stolen car out of Fife," she said. "And there was wood piles that they were going to put into the house to start a fire in the fireplace."
The fireplace in the home has a gas insert, and burning wood could have touched off an explosion.
Auburn focused on the forclosure problem nine months ago, creating a website it calls the wall of shame.
The site lists 30 problem properties, and the city is working with neighbors to force banks to make changes when it can.
Wells Fargo holds the mortgage to the home that's causing so much grief for Potter and her neighbors.
"I'd like to see this house cleaned up so that it can be sold and people living in it," she said.
While Auburn puts pressure on the mortgage holders, other cities such as Tacoma are using federal grants to clean up abandoned homes or help people who are facing foreclosure.
Right now there is $44 million being distributed for those efforts across the state.
I disagree with the part about lighting a wood fire in the fireplace causing an explosion. The gas should be turned off, and PSE would have already done so if there is no service at the house and no one paying the bill, after four years.
The gas is turned off outside the house, so there is no risk inside the fireplace. If there is an expert on natural gas utilities here, please correct me. Thanks
 @northwestsurfer You are absolutely correct and it wouldn't take but a couple of months of non-use/non-payment for PSE to lock out the meter.
@Furd Thanks, I thought so. Scare tactics, the media loves this stuff. They will eat whatever garbage people feed them so they can turn around and publish it.
What good does that website do other than provide a nice tidy list of places to go for the squatters?
Everyone complains about neighborhoods with HOAs until this kind of thing happens. With restrictions come benefits.
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Ahh... written like a true socialist.
 @Bornhere Really? You think socialists like HOAs? As a socialist, I find that HOAs represent the worst parts of capitalism. You sign a contract to give money to a small group of people who are generally voted in by a miniscule representation of a neighborhood and they can change the rules after a certain amount of time.  Now if 3/4ths of the houses in a neighborhood had to vote for new leaders and new rules, I would say it would be socialism but it falls more into almost a strange plutocracy where only retired or people with out jobs end up running the neighborhood.
 @Bornhere There are instructions?
@Bornhere haha
 @northwestsurfer
I am going to have to go against all my male instincts and read the directions.
@Bornhere @quidproquo This new commenting site system sucks, you cant even edit your own comments after posting them.
 @quidproquo Arrrgh... italics fail!
 @quidproquoMy comment was aimed mainly at nwbackpacker's last sentence: <i>With restrictions come benefits.</i>
It will likely be burned down either by an illegal occupant or a frustrated neighbor.  That should solve the squatting problem, just not the eyesore problem.  There were houses like that all over Seattle in the 80s.  Eventually they get cleaned up or replaced. Â
I'm curious if the banks keep some kind of home owners insurance on these properties. I know if a home owner doesn't maintain insurance, the lender/bank will get it and add it to the mortgage bill -- but I do not know what happens if it is foreclosed on. If these properties are insured, you'd think the insurance companies may want to step in because they could be responsible for some of the damage.Â
 @The WA Mama I'd be very much surprised if the banks have insurance on the vacant homes. Since the banks hold hundreds, if not thousands, of homes in limbo the cost of insuring would be astronomical whereas the loss of a single, or even a few homes would be simply written off as bad debt.
@The WA Mama --- They should be required to insure, but I doubt they do because it is very expensive to insure a vacant home. We deal with this all the time with probates. It is very expensive to insurance vacant properties.Â
I can empathize with those poor neighbors. Â The house across the street looks way worse than that and the guy lives there. Â He has blackberries growing into the siding of his house and hasn't mowed in years. Â King County will do nothing unless there are rodent problems. Â I hope they can get action taken, it is very, very frustrating to work hard to maintain your home near a fire hazard like that, watching your values plummet.........
We had one on my street for more than a year. The homeowner had ripped out every thing he could possibly use (he was a contractor, so that's a lot!) and left the house behind. The house became a hotspot for the local teen thugs and a few older ones. Pretty dumb in a small town where everyone knows everyone. Any way, after a year of this and concerns over garbage, possible rat problems, and plummeting property values, the eyesore was finally sold to a developer. The bank had to re-roof it prior to the sale. The developer had to re-roof it after the sale because the bank had hired someone that they expected to work a budgetary and roofing miracle. He had essentially used new shingles to cover up all kinds of rot and ruin. The developer got into more expense than he ever thought, but this is a nice place now. I hope we get a nice family in it.
There is a foreclosed house right next to me with furniture sitting outside of the home, boarded up windows and a boat that was just sitting next to the house until recently. Heck, for all I know it was stolen....these banks would rather sit and let these houses decay and crumble instead of fixing them up and selling them.
 @dg54321 banks aren't going to do anything that would result in them having to SPEND money.Â
I'm not sure who this reporter spoke to in Tacoma, but I have two empty, boarded-up nightmare homes with vagrants in across the street and Tacoma doesn't seem to be inspired to do anything about them.
We had the same thing happen in our neighborhood. We all tried to keep the house safe, the yard was kept up by US, the large pond was producing massive amounts of mosquitoes, so I put bleach in it every month. At one point we just couldn't keep it up, there were racoons, rabbits and then the coyote came. We were actually happy the coyote was cleaning up the vermin. I know, poor bunnies..but rats and racoons. Then we got a hold of the bank, and the city. The bank was forced to clean it up. After that it finally sold.Â
It was good for us to all come together, we also stopped two attempted break-ins during broad daylight, as usual. But the banks need to be held responsible. It is their property, they need to take care of it.
I don't know but cities fine the banks who are the current owners and keep the fines going on a daily basis until it reaches the amount to purchuse and bulldoze them down.