The city’s Board of Works has approved declaring 2123 Washington St. as a public nuisance.
Columbus police have received several calls about the property from neighbors about the property, city officials said.
According Columbus Police Officer Drake Maddix, who spoke at the board’s May 25 meeting, said that since the investigation into this property began, he has received several calls, both during the day and at night, from nearby neighbors. He also stated that an arrest was made at the residence a couple of weeks ago.
“Our unit, along with our Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team, set up on the residence to kind of conduct an enforcement blitz,” Maddix explained. “And during that time, we ended up recovering a .45-caliber handgun and narcotics off of one of the individuals that’s the primary renter of that residence. He’s a convicted felon, he was arrested and held in jail for several days, but then subsequently bonded out later.”
Neighbors said there have been problems at the residence for the past six years.
Code enforcement coordinator Fred Barnett said at the meeting that declaring the residence a public nuisance is a crucial step toward evicting the tenants.
“I’ve talked to the landlord,” Barnett said. “He understands the situation. He knows what I’m going to do. He knows that I’m going to be trying to file a civil suit against him because of the conditions of the property. His goal is to evict them, but right now he can’t.”
The state of Indiana has an executive order in place right now that prevents evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also noted that this is a unique case because it is not an instance where public nuisance is declared because of unsafe housing. Instead, the case falls under the definition of public nuisance that includes “anything which is injurious to health or offensive to sight, smell, hearing and … hinders any of the citizens of the city in the exercise of enjoyment of any of their rights and privileges.”
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Barnett said that once the residence is declared a nuisance and the city attorney’s civil suit begins, the landlord can take the information to a judge and begin the eviction process. He also noted that the landlord has the right to appeal the board’s decision.
“The main thing is to have a process in place,” Barnett said. “Because for a lot of other properties in town that are similar situations, and what this does, it starts to hold the landlords accountable for the public nuisance that their property is on the neighborhood.”
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