A Thomas Street, Cummingsburg resident is counting her losses after an abandoned house collapsed onto the side of her home and she is calling on the authorities at the City Council to demolish the derelict building.
Laurine Jardine, who resides at Lot 290, Thomas Street, said she and her husband were awakened by a thunderous noise around 4.30 yesterday morning.
She explained from the time she heard the noise she suspected that the house had fallen as it was leaning towards her home. On checking, the woman said, her fears were confirmed. She noted that at this point she is unable to figure out the damage as the derelict structure is still braced against the northern side of her house.
However, sections of her wall and pipes connected to the washroom and kitchen were damaged.
The woman said she made several attempts to contact the owner of the house but the woman, Hyacinth Cunningham, denied the house was owned by her.
However, Jardine noted, rates are being paid to the council under Cunningham’s name. Jardine said when she contacted other relatives who she knew used to live at the property they denied the ownership.
“I called so many people in the states and they are all saying it is not their house… If money was sharing out though it would have had so much owners… I myself would have claimed to be an owner… I don’t know who would bear the cost of the damage here,” Jardine stressed.
She said that prior to the house collapsing, last November a zinc sheet had blown off the house and burst her water tank and when she contacted the neighbour, the woman also denied ownership of the property.
“Every time I look out this window I keep saying his house is going to fall it is going fall and it did. I talked to the neighbour but nothing was done,” Jardine lamented. She said the structure had been standing since the 1940s.
She went on to say when she visited the City Council she was told that nothing could be done and she would need to get in contact with the property owners.
The council last year had embarked on a campaign to remove derelict buildings around the city. Town Clerk Royston King had then said that the cost for the demolition of buildings would be attached to their property rates.
