Crews demolish unsafe home

Lisa Garner said demolishing the dangerous mobile home near her own home will help her neighborhood transform.

Neighbors began calling in complaints about the mobile home on West Applegate Drive three years ago. Austin Police logged more than 200 calls to the single-wide home since 2006.

"When you have a bunch of drug addicts, that is not safe at all," Garner said. "You have them walking the streets. They were on bicycles; they are climbing fences. They were everywhere."

Manuel Villegas with the Austin Code Compliance Department said the home had exposed wiring, had unsafe floors and was rife with rats and cockroaches.

"The neighborhood was looking at this and saying, 'Hey Code Compliance, we call you. What are you doing about it?'" he said.

Villegas said as many as 18 people lived in the home at one time. Inspectors found tenants circumvented having their utilities cut off by running jumper cables off nearby power lines and a car radiator hose around the water meter.

"That allegedly had some lead, so that contaminates the water system," Villegas said.

He said the health of families within a 10-block radius was put at risk. That included Charles Fruzia, who lived about a block east.

"Whoever is responsible for seeing to it that it is taken down, all I can say is thank you," Fruzia said.

Austin Code Compliance said it is just getting started. Five other properties in the area are expected to be demolished in the next month for similar reasons.

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Crews demolish unsafe home