King’s House Condemned; 11 Evicted, Sent To Motel

It was moving and boarding-up day at 274 Edgewood Ave., by order of the city.

Months of controversy and neighborhood agita came to end Tuesday afternoon as the city’s Liveable City Initiative (LCI) declared the house, owned by former Alderman Drew King, unfit for human habitation. LCI gave the 11 people living there — in quarters legally zoned for four — a few hours to haul some of their belongings over to the Three Judges Motel, where they’ll stay until the city finds them more permanent housing. Then LCI had King board the windows and padlock the doors.

The Edgewood house is across the street from Troup School, which is currently undergoing renovations.

“Halleleujah!” next-door neighbor Bill Bixby, whose house had feces sticking to its side Tuesday, exclaimed about the condemnation. Bixby said an occupant of 274 Edgewood threw the feces at his house after Bixby kept calling the cops about drug activity.

“The situation really deteriorated” from noise and minor drug-dealing to ​“really scary” in recent months, Bixby said. The other night, in 15 minutes sitting on his porch, Bixby said, he saw ​“a guy shoot up, and two guys light up their crack pipes.”

The extended drama began in January, when the city found too many people living at the house, owned by Drew King, then a city alderman from Dixwell. King had hoped to put a ​“sober house” there for recovering addicts, but he never got permission. So he was running an illegal rooming house. The city also found substandard conditions at the house. It was one of a series of personal and business problems that led King to resign his seat.

“It’s a sad situation. But I’ve got to do my job,” LCI inspector Scott Sheeley (pictured) said while standing outside the house Tuesday afternoon. He was there to oversee the condemnation. He told tenants to take whatever belongings they could transport that day to the Three Judges, out near the Woodbridge town line; they needed to find their own rides. He told them they have until the end of Wednesday to retrieve whatever other belongings they can; they need to arrange with landlord King to meet them at the house to open the padlocks.

Meanwhile, Sheeley had King board up the windows and buy the padlocks. King will have to pay for the tenants’ stay at Three Judges, Sheeley said.

Until about two months ago, King had succeeded in responding to LIC’s complaints, according to Sheeley. He reduced the number of tenants in the house to four. He made repairs.

Then the situation spun ​“out of control” again, Sheeley said. Now there are ​“deplorable” conditions at the house: an illegal third-floor apartment without a second means of egress; disappeared smoke detectors; no hot water. The gas had to be turned off because of a hole in one of the chimney flues, creating a backdraft that posed danger of carbon monoxide build-up. A drain or sewage pipe in the kitchen was leaking. Water dripped from the ceiling, over electrical wires.

And the house was allegedly filled with 11 people again, with constant reports of drug-dealing, drug use, prostitution, and loud noise.

“I didn’t know what the hell was going on” the past two months, Drew King (pictured) said. He said he had hired a superintendent to watch the building. ​“The house was in chaos. We always had to call the police and report that drugs were in the house. Nothing was being done about it. The only thing I could do was shut it down.”

At one point a tenant ripped out the electric box, he said. He doesn’t know why the tenant did it. ​“They shot mess all over the neighbor’s house.” He said he’s selling the house. ​“I believe this is the last headache. After this is over I can go on with my life.”

Going on with life will prove tricky, at least in the short run, for the evicted tenants. Their immediate concern on Tuesday was finding rides out to Three Judges, and figuring out how much of their belongings they could stuff into friends’ or relatives’ cars. Then they needed to figure out how to get back and retrieve the rest of their stuff by the end of Wednesday. Finally, they need to find permanent places to live.

That hasn’t been easy for Karen Taylor (at left in photo). She was homeless a couple of years ago. She moved to 274 Edgewood 15 days ago, paid $500 a month for her room. She said she lives on $570 a month in government disability payments. ​“Everywhere you go is $600,” she said.

Monica (pictured; she didn’t give her last name) said she has been working to help Taylor. Monica identified herself as both an ​“independent social worker” who originally hooked up with Taylor when Taylor was at the Columbus House shelter; and landlord of ​“congregate housing” complexes for indigent people.

“I was helping her get her life together,” Monica said. She said the environment at 274 Edgewood made it hard for people, like Taylor, trying to turn their lives around.

“It was just left unattended. You put a substance abuser in a place like that — they can be clean and sober. Once one person relapses, it gets crazy. It’s like a virus waiting to spread.”