A dilapitated house located at 1222 St. Helens Street sits behind a notice of condemnation and order to demolish, Wednesday afternoon in Centralia.
A dilapitated house located at 1222 St. Helens Street sits behind a notice of condemnation and order to demolish, Wednesday afternoon in Centralia.
A dilapitated house located at 1222 St. Helens Street sits behind a notice of condemnation and order to demolish, Wednesday afternoon in Centralia.
A dilapitated house located at 1222 St. Helens Street sits behind a notice of condemnation and order to demolish, Wednesday afternoon in Centralia.
The more than decade-long saga of the house at 1222 St. Helens Ave. appears to be headed for either a protracted conclusion or a showdown in Lewis County Superior Court.
The City of Centralia planned to serve property owner Joan Sittko with a lawsuit Wednesday morning asserting that the rotting house there has reached the level of delinquency required for the city to assert the right to tear it down.
Sittko will have 20 days to appeal the position of the city building department that the house is condemned for the purposes of habitability and human residency. Notices were posted at the St. Helens Address and sent to people living in Puyallup. The Lewis County Assessor’s Office lists Sittko as living there.
“We think we know where she’s at again,” Centralia City Attorney Shannon Murphy-Olson said. “Her official address is the one in Puyallup I got from the court. Someone has been paying the property taxes up there, so I worked with the treasurer’s office to get that information and we’ll serve those people, too. We’re covering all of our bases on this. The fact (is) we know she doesn’t live (at 1222 St. Helens Ave.), we’re going to make every attempt to serve her personally.”
City staff have attempted to serve Sittko with the legal papers since shortly after the city council approved changes to the municipal code in November.
Those changes gave the community development director authority to rule on building code violations and further incorporated aspects of the International Property Maintenance Code already enshrined in city code.
The appeals process would begin with a hearing in front of the city’s hearings examiner — local attorney and municipal court judge James Buzzard. Either party could then appeal his findings to Superior Court.
Neighbors Joe Calkins and Tom Wagner sat outside Calkins’ house directly across from Sittko’s on Wednesday morning and traded stories of encounters they’ve had with Sittko, her longtime boyfriend and city staff related to the nuisance property.
Calkins claimed that it took him about $200 worth of rat poison to address a rodent issue he blamed on the decrepit house next door.
“At this point, I don’t care how they get it done,” he said. “I just want to see that house come down and that property dealt with.”
Murphy-Olson clarified Tuesday that the use of the word “condemned” comes from language in the International Property Maintenance Code and does not mean the city is claiming ownership of the property.
Should the city prevail in court, it would knock down the house, clean up the property and bill Sittko in the form of a lien. According to the Assessor’s Office, Sittko owes property taxes totaling $910.84. The assessor’s website lists a $128.35 payment in May 2017 as her last attempt to cut into her tax bill.
“We had code enforcement and then our building officials go out and do an examination of the house from the street,” Murphy-Olson said. “Anything salvageable wouldn’t be economically sound at this point. The house is pretty far gone.”
Prior to Wednesday, the city most recently took legal action against Sittko in June 2018. Buzzard issued a ruling of abatement allowing city staff to address the condition of the property outside of the house itself.
Workers spent a full day there removing overgrowth that camouflaged the house from street view, as well as debris such as mattresses and car parts strewn at ground level. Once the house became visible, piles of water-damaged mattresses and boxes could be seen piled up inside.
Sittko pleaded guilty in June 2017 to a misdemeanor nuisance violation, at which time Buzzard told her she needed to act by the following October to avoid more serious consequences. Her property has been a sore spot for neighborhood residents and city staff since former police chief Bob Berg highlighted it on his “Dirty Dozen” list back in 2006.
“If she doesn’t appeal this ruling, it will mean a default judgement in our favor,” Murphy-Olson said. “I will still have an advisory hearing before our hearings examiner for a final blessing, since it is a pretty big action. Once we get the go-ahead, we’ll go clean it up and then put a lien on it.”
