Borough ready to demo home

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NAUGATUCK — A seven year battle over a dilapidated house may come to an end soon.

The house located at 146 Walnut St., which is owned by former Burgess and Tax Collector Lois Ackerman, is slated to be demolished in early November, according to Public Works Director Jim Stewart.

The roof of the house caved in over seven years ago. The borough ordered the house either be repaired or demolished in August of 2007 due to the extent of the damage. The home violates the borough’s building codes and was deemed to be a hazardous property.

Ackerman lived in the home until December 2008. Although the home is now vacant it still contains family heirlooms.

Ackerman has been fighting the order in court to demolish her home, saying she has planned to do the necessary repairs to bring it back up to code.

“It was always my intention to repair my property,” Ackerman told the Board of Mayor and Burgess at its meeting earlier this month.

Ackerman said she paid a contractor to shore up the rear of the building and made arrangements to get the money to repair the house. Unfortunately, she said, that’s when the economy crashed and the funding fell through.

“I tried everything else to raise funds, but because of the economy I couldn’t,” she said.

At the meeting Ackerman accused Stewart of breaking into her home on two separate occasions. She said she went to the house in March and the locks had been replaced. She said she reported it to the police, thinking someone broke into the home.

“A few days later I picked up the paper and saw a story with a picture of my house, saying my house was going to be demolished and that an environmental study had been done,” Ackerman said. “So it occurred to me that if someone had done an environmental study they would have had to go into my house. … On two occasions the town has broken into my house, take off my padlocks.”

Stewart said in a subsequent interview that the borough has permission from the court to enter the home to do environmental assessments before the demolition.

“If we have permission to demolish the house we obviously have permission to enter it,” Stewart said.

Throughout the years Ackerman has filed appeals to save her home from demolition.
According to Stewart the most recent one was for a temporary injunction to allow her to remove personal items from her home before it is demolished.

Stewart said the injunction ends on Nov. 3 and he expects the home to come down shortly afterwards.

The borough has awarded a $19,440 contract to Ocean Trace Demolition of Watertown to demolish the house. The borough will recoup the money by putting a lien on the property.