A house on East Jefferson Street, flanked by doors that could hardly be opened, was deemed unfit for human occupancy for being littered with items that made it “impossible to safely travel through the house in the event of an emergency,” just weeks before the emergency responders evacuated a man through a window of the home.
Neighborhood Development Services issued homeowner C. W. Rogers Jr. an order of correction on January 1, which required him and any additional occupants to leave his home at 1108 E. Jefferson St. until he or his power of attorney fixes the four safety, health and sanitation violations to the Virginia maintenance code.
Joe Phillips, a current Charlottesville Fire Department captain and member of more than 17 years, says books and other household items were scattered on the floor of the home when Rogers’ brother arrived to retrieve some paperwork and heard a man moaning from inside a bedroom. After the brother called the fire department for help, Phillips’ crew managed to enter through the front door, but was unable to take the man out that way because of the clutter, according to Phillips.
The man was lying in bed, next to an accessible window when Rogers’ brother called for help. “It was easier to slide him out [a] window than it was to carry him across items in the house,” Phillips says. The crew hitched a ladder slide up to the open window and strapped him into a stokes basket, which is designed to slide down the rails of the ladder.
The man’s relationship to Rogers is unknown, but a neighbor speculates that it was a roommate still living in the home after Rogers relocated. Refusing to give her name, she said Rogers is the street’s oldest inhabitant and that neighbors are fond of him.
Alexander Ikefuna, director of NDS, says the East Jefferson house has already been condemned and a February 15 deadline has been set to institute a plan of action for the structure. In the January notice, the home was cited for unsanitary conditions and, though utilities were activated, records showed they hadn’t been used in several months.
“It is hard to tell what is trash and what might be salvageable household belongings,” the notice reads. “There is trash, rubbish and debris amongst all the accumulation of belongings.”
The home, sold to Rogers in August 1962, was up for a re-inspection on February 5, but Ikefuna says the items in the house had not been removed, so the home was not re-inspected. It is unclear whether the home will require demolition, but in 2011, the city did demolish a structure that wasn’t maintained at 704 Montrose Ave.
According to city records, Rogers also owned that home.
Year to date, Ikefuna says 12 city properties were deemed unfit for human occupancy for various reasons. In some cases, repairs were made immediately and that designation was lifted. For example, he says that after a roof collapse on Market Street just weeks ago, the structure was deemed unsafe and owners immediately had a portion of the building demolished, making the building stable enough to allow workers inside to continue construction.
To condemn a structure, the city follows the Virginia maintenance code “to adjudge unfit for occupancy,” which Ikefuna says has two meanings.
An unsafe structure could be one with conditions causing at least a portion of the building to collapse and endanger the safety of occupants or the surrounding public—such as the Market Street roof collapse—or a structure could have conditions that are dangerous to the occupants or public by disrepair or lack of maintenance, sanitary conditions, lack of utilities or required plumbing facilities—such as the East Jefferson and Montrose Avenue homes.
“If owners make repairs then all is well,” he says. “If owners are neglectful then we can take them to court.”