NEW ORLEANS — It can be hard to say goodbye to your neighbors unless you’re next-door neighbors with blight.
“There’s nothing bitter sweet about this,” Neighbor Connie Uddo said. “It’s like hooray!”
Since Hurricane Katrina, a home on Vicksburg Street in Lakeview has been abandoned, decaying, and causing problems for those who live near it.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Neighbor Brigette Star said. “Termites, rodents, abandoned cars.”
After a sixteen-year fight with its owner, the home was finally demolished on Friday, calling for a victory party to celebrate the big win.
The home was an eyesore on the street, but Brigette Star says cosmetics were the least of their worries. Rats, mosquitoes, and vagrants called 5700 Vicksburg home. With young children living on the street, it quickly became a safety concern.
“The proximity for the Star family was the worst,” another neighbor said. I mean, the kids growing up, little babies, growing up in this environment next door. And that was a sad part.”
After years of refusing to clean up the property, the owner of the home racked up over half a million dollars in fines.
“This is a beautiful part of Lakeview,” Neighbor Sal Sunseri said. “You can be part of redoing it, and she never did. She just never did.”
Neighbors credit Council Member Joe Giarrusso for holding code enforcement’s feet to the fire and calling for change.
“Finally, we really drew a line in the sand with the administration over the summer and just said, It's been two decades. This thing needs to come down,” Giarrusso said.
This isn’t the first time the neighborhood has celebrated a blight milestone. Two years ago, they threw the home a sweet sixteen and never-before-fixed birthday party.
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