Stoop Talk Update

In September 2013, our Stoop Talk series began as neighbors gathered on the front stoop of one of the residents in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans to talk about the plight and the dangers that blighted properties impose upon the community. They said that many of the abandoned homes belong to people who did not move back to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  One woman reminded us that “the blight before Hurricane Katrina added to the [present] blight.”  These houses are eyesores and a nuisance to the community and bring with them other ills.The abandoned and overgrown lots attract rats, snakes, and spiders which often migrate to the homes of residents.  Spiders and rats have been seen coming from more than one of these properties.  An elderly woman of the community shared her frustration of living next door to such a house. “The husband died; then the mother-in-law died so it’s just sitting there.  I had my son to try to find out who owns it because I had mice there in the house, and the pest control man told me that as long as the house was there vacant with all that grass over there that I would have mice. So that’s why we tried to get something done with it.”  Another woman added, “One day over here (pointing to one of the houses on her block) this other house had snakes running out of it.”  She said, as she formed a 4 inch circle with her hands, “That yard (a few doors away) has spiders that big, over there, and that’s our issue!”  One woman tried to take matters into her own hands.  She said, “I set rat traps in there (pointing to her yard) ‘cause they still comin’ from over there (referring to the same abandoned house and overgrown lot just mentioned).  “And I be so scared to go in my back yard because I’m scared I’m gonna see the snakes because they told us one got away.”Along with these unwanted conditions, the undesirable properties multiply pests that under normal conditions might be more manageable.   One man shared his frustration, “They need to keep the grass cut, like they said, and roaches, all that trash. I got an abandoned house next to mine…all them cockroaches!”   And as one neighbor stated, “When people use abandoned houses as garbage pits, it will draw rats.”  Yet there is more we can do, said one neighbor.  We can do little tasks such as keeping our homes clean, putting the garbage where it belongs.  She warns that when we put food on the ground to feed the cats, the food also draws rats.  She remembers one woman throwing garbage on the ground and protesting when confronted that “it is the garbage man’s job to pick it up.  The rodents," she warned, "live in the walls.  If we don’t pick [food or garbage] up, it will draw rodents.”These properties and the pests are a stimulus for aggravation and fear.Yet there are other fears that arise from the presence of blighted properties in their community.  Some people daily face the fear of the possibility that the house next door could go up in flames.  “I’m afraid right now. I’m afraid of fire.  If somebody goes in there and sets those buildings on fire, we all gone.”Blighted property also seems to facilitate the presence of undesirable behavior as well.   “I think that blight causes crime.” said one of the neighbors from around the corner.   One man from a block away said, “Only two people ever lived in that house; (next door to him) that was two years before Katrina, but the last year or so it’s been a haven for drug addicts, prostitution, all kinds of stuff.  The bank sent out some men to take a look at it.  It was horrible!  There were needles all over the place; there was drug activity.  There was human feces throughout the entire house.  They stole all the toilets; they stole all the ceiling fans, they stole all the copper tubing from out of that house.”  People noted that overgrown lots are havens for illegal drugs.  One woman talked about her efforts to rid her surroundings of such behavior.   “Okay, next to my house where that Habitat House is built, that was a vacant lot.  I used to drive City Hall crazy to cut it.  It is cut, and it’s clean.  It stopped them from hiding their drugs.  The presence of illegal drug activity in the neighborhood, along with the use of nuisance properties in which to hide drugs makes the streets unsafe and is one of the reasons that many neighbors will not go out of their homes after dark.   Again, one neighbor shared her contribution to changing blight into beauty.  She turned the abandoned property next door to her home into a garden.  The process took her 20 years and so many trips to City Hall that “even the girls who worked there remembered me over all those years.”Neighbors have reported at least one case of willful neglect, and insist that a former homeowner has said more than once that they don’t want anything to do with the property, that they are not willing to put any money into it, and that they are waiting for the City to take it over.   As one of the neighbors commented, “They can’t tear the house down.  It is not in code.  It is too small to be rebuilt into another house.  It will just become a vacant lot.”“As for the crime in the community,” he continued, “It is quiet now.  Most of the young men who were involved in the crimes were killed.”  “How many?”  I asked.  He looked up reflectively and said, “I lost count.”More than four?”“More than four,” he said, “and the corner store where they hung out is closed.  We’ll see how long it stays quiet.There have been reports of the murders in the news, and we have seen the yellow tape and police and reporters and the sound of a second-line at that corner.“I need the corner store,” he continued.  “There are new people who [are going to reopen it,] I just hope that they will be able to keep them from loitering.”The neighbors wanted to see changes in the neighborhood, but were not convinced that the local city administration would listen to their complaints. More than that, they were not convinced that the local administration would be moved to respond to complaints made mostly by people who are not homeowners or who are not people of influence.  However, a few of the neighbors still made the effort to call City Hall to report their concerns.  Six months later, there were already signs of hope.During our May  2014 Stoop Talk, we could hardly hear ourselves over the lawnmower roaring behind us, though some of us were sure that the lot cut only recently before had nothing to do with our efforts.  “Y’all didn’t do that.  That other man who lives down  the block knows somebody in City Hall.  He did that.”Today I heard a different story.  “They have been cutting the grass in the neighborhood.  We got it done.  They come and check on their property every few months and they cut the grass.” Another neighbor added, “They came one day and half-did it, but they came back and did it right.”