NEW ORLEANS - It might look like a forest on this attractive New Orleans east block, but there's an abandoned house half hidden in the foliage that has grown up to 25 feet tall.
"You have drug addicts, and that's the main thing, those people come in there using drugs," said the owner's daughter Vanessa Ross. "And kids playing in there! Suppose you find a kid in there dead! That's horrible! They really need to do something right away."
"I think about it every day, every minute, every second, because for number one, it's so dangerous," said owner Jean Jack. "I'm constantly hearing stuff at night. I hardly can sleep sometimes."
"So we're overwhelmed, and it just goes through you to see that, and you get so full and about to cry," added her other daughter Denisse Broussard.
They say the house was gutted after Katrina, and left. They're worried about the creeps infesting the wide open structure, and the creepy-crawlies.
"I'm afraid of rats, not only rats but snakes," said Ross.
"And then one day I was getting out of my car, so I had seen the guy bringing the mattress in there, so he looked at me," Broussard said, spreading her hands wide as she imitated the man, and I'm like," and she shrugs."
"And suppose it catches fire," worried Vanessa Ross. "Those are trees, you look in California, trees are catching on fire, so if it catches fire, it's going to burn all this down."
This is one of the few remaining places where you can still see that water line from the 2005 flood. Maybe the state museum would want this door for the Katrina story. The city has records on this house on the Blight Status complaint site going back to 2009. Maybe it's time they stop writing about it, and take some action here. I'll be asking them to do what they need to do.
A city spokesman said officials are looking into the problem.
