As the home of her great aunt was foreclosed on, Pam Onofrio, who lives next door, vowed not to permit the slumlords and rats to return.
She has good reason to be concerned. Over the years she has seen the 108-year-old house adjacent to her, at 184-186 Fillmore, fall victim to slumlords who, she alleges, at one point had upwards of 30 people living in the two family house.
“LCI [Livable City Initiative] and I were on a first-name basis then,” Onofrio said as a lawyer arrived to conduct the foreclosure sale. “There was sewage up to the knees in the basement that the men pumped out into the backyard. It smelled awful. All illegal. I won’t allow another slumlord to move in.”
That was before 2000, when Onofrio’s aunt, Stella Barbato bought it and lived in it with her daughter Maryann. The relatives made good neighbors, Onofrio said. But then Maryann moved away to West Haven to get married, and cancer struck Stella Barbato. Bad. She struggled for two years and had to move out.
A great uncle remained, but then he got sick and moved to a different section of Fair Haven.
When tenants came in, more trouble followed, and Onofrio was back to defending her turf and calling LCI.
Eventually, when Stella Barbatao died a year ago, paying the mortgage became a hardship, and the house slipped into foreclosure.
Whether the new owners will have tenants who behave like good relatives or uncaring strangers will now, it appears, be up as much up to Deutsche Bank as to Onofrio. Even more so.
On Saturday morning, the house was up for a foreclosure sale, and the street was busy with people, whom Onofrio surveyed as they walked by.
But they were not stopping to bid, and few seemed curious to pause at the foreclosure sign. Instead, they were racing to get into see their kids play at one of the many basketball games unfolding at Farnam Neighborhood House, just four houses down.
Apparently that anchoring and revered community institution had not attracted potential buyers to think that 184-186 Fillmore would be a good investment. Court-appointed attorney Daniel Lyons (pictured with a paralegal assistant, Dawn D’Amato) said there had been not a single inquiry.
Downward Spiral
What had happened to the house since 2000 was a tale not unfamiliar in the annals of foreclosure, in which a job loss or illness is the trigger that leads to missed mortgage payments and then legal action.
“After Stella died, relatives lived there, but Stella had always handled the payments,” Onofrio said. “Then tenants moved in who made a terrible mess of things. The family had to give up on it. It’s very sad.”
The record shows that Stella Barbato’s $103,000 mortgage, taken out in 2003, from an outfit called America’s Moneyline, Inc., found its way through various assignments to Deutsche Bank, which decided in the fall to recoup its asset.
So, at 11 a.m. sharp, with only Onofrio, her two-year old daughter Isabella, and fiance Eric Katynski (pictured at the top of the story) listening intently from the next door porch, Lyons announced the opening bid from Deutsche Bank: $121,042.62. “Any other bids?”
A man driving by in a black Honda, apparently looking for a parking spot for the Farnam basketball game, paused in the middle of the road, as cars waited impatiently behind him. He asked what he needed to bid.
“You need a certified check for $15,000,” shouted Lyons, in the first instance in this reporter’s experience, of a drive-by foreclosure proceeding.
The man didn’t have it, but said the house in his view wasn’t worth $150,000 anyway, which was the appraised value, and the 10 percent of that being the ticket to bid. In fact, according to the record, in September the appraised value was $150,000. But in December, in an appraisal ordered by the court to coincide with the foreclosure, the fair market value was estimated to have plummeted $15,000, to $135,000, in just three months.
“I’ve been inside,” said a skeptical Onofrio, “and I don’t think the place is worth $80,000. After my relatives left, people made a mess of it.”
With the sale done, Onofrio asked attorney Lyons what the next step would be. “I don’t know,” he said. “Assuming the sale is approved, the bank has a real estate arm, and my guess would be that you’ll see a For Sale sign out in front within a few months; it’ll take a few weeks for the court to officially accept the sale.”
That was of concern to Onofrio. “This summer,” she said, “I must have called Laurie Lopez Johnson 20 times.” Lopez is LCI’s specialist for the neighborhood. “I was afraid to let my baby go outside.”
Eventually LCI did come, Onofrio said. The rats have been nowhere in evidence since. She ascribes the absence of rats less to LCI’s intervention and more to the cold weather.
Was Onofrio concerned about squatters or vandalism of the property between now and when Deutsche Bank makes its overtures to dispose of 184-186 Fillmore? Perhaps. If so, she wasn’t showing it.
“I’ve lived in my house for 31 years,” she said. “All my life. On the other side of Stella’s my best friend’s grandmother has lived there for 50 years. Across the street, another relative has been living for 30 years. This is an old Italian neighborhood. Between Lombard and the Farnam House the only real problem we have is parking, especially when people come to the basketball game. Believe me, I have chased drug dealers out of the driveway with a baseball bat. We do what we have to do.”
Previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:
• Foreclosure Fee-Slashing Judge Leaves Town
• A Last Pre-Foreclosure Look At A Lifetime Past
• New Yorker Snags Foreclosed-Upon Gem
• Foreclosure Dream Goes Sour
• Judge Slashes Foreclosure Bounty
‚Ä¢ Tax Break Saves Woman’s House
‚Ä¢ Bank Replaces “Gunshot Alley” Landlord
‚Ä¢ Foreclosure Bill OK’d
• Singh Seeks Home For A Song
‚Ä¢ Foreclosure’s Neighbor Worries More About Speeding
‚Ä¢ Networking Replaces Foreclosure at Christy’s
‚Ä¢ Foreclosure Bargain — & Renewal — Jeopardized
• Bank Outbids Akbar; Family May Keep Home
‚Ä¢ “So Don’t Worry About Pablo”
• Bankruptcy Postpones Foreclosure
• Next-Door Foreclosures, 53 Years Apart
• They Met On Foreclosure Way
• Little Garage Draws Big Bids
• A 2nd Chance on Lewis Street
‚Ä¢ Foreclosure Attracts New Breed of “Specialist”
‚Ä¢ In Foreclosures, Judge’s Hands Tied
• Home Saved From Foreclosure. Cycle, Too
• A House For Precious?
• Deutsche Bank Grabs Dixwell Condo
• Reluctant Bidder Snags F. Haven Bargain
‚Ä¢ Well, There’s Always Powerball
• Neighbors Retrieve Home From Bank
• Somebody Has Plans For Bassett Street
• Foreclosed, the Khennavongs Leave the Santanas
• Foreclosure Steal May Be Too Good
• 2nd Foreclosure in 3 Months Dims Bright St.
‚Ä¢ After Foreclosure, W’ville Owner Still Hopes To Sell
‚Ä¢ He’s Not Buying, Yet
• Quiet Foreclosure on Porter Street
• 3 Minutes Too Late
• Historic Gambardella Property Foreclosed
•2 Homes Lost, 1 Gained
‚Ä¢ “Everybody’s Got To Eat”
• More Foreclosures, More Signs
‚Ä¢ Foreclosure Sale Benefits Archie Moore’s
• Rescue Squad Swings Into Action
• A Bidder Shows Up
‚Ä¢ Bank Beats Tanya’s Bid
• Westville Auction Draws A Crowd
• DeStefano: Foreclosure Plan Ready
• Can They Help?
‚Ä¢ “We Should Over-Regulate These Bastards”
• Rosa Hears of Rescues
• WPCA Grilled on Foreclosures
‚Ä¢ WPCA’s Targets Struggle To Dig Out
• Sue The Subprimers?
• WPCA Hearing Delayed
‚Ä¢ Megna’s “Blood Boils” at WPCA Tactics
• Goldfield Wants WPCA Answers
• 2 Days, 8 Foreclosure Suits
• WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
• A Guru Weighs In
• WPCA Targets Church
• Subprime Mess Targeted
‚Ä¢ Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
‚Ä¢ She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
‚Ä¢ Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
‚Ä¢“I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”
‚Ä¢ Struggling Couple Sues Over “Scam”
To learn about the ROOF Project, a community-wide effort to help New Haveners navigate the foreclosure crisis, click here.
The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.
For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562-5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.
Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.