Eye Sore of the Week: 1428 New York Ave. 

(This column was updated to include additional information from a recent City Council committee meeting.)

1428 New York Ave. 

Update: City officials reported at a City Council committee meeting on Thursday, Nov. 18 that this home was vacated by the Police Department and that recent concerns from local neighbors — like those featured in this column — have subsequently disappeared.

This northside home is no visual charmer, but that’s not why it has our attention.

Multiple complaints from neighbors over loud noise late into the night, suspected drug dealing and lewd behavior from its residents and guests prompted a discussion about this address at the Lansing City Council’s Committee on Public Safety last week. The biggest problem: Nobody should be living there. The home was red-tagged, declared unsafe and ordered vacated last year. Utilities are shut off. But alas, the neighborhood complaints have only continued to pile up.

Kathryn Monroe lives across the street and sent a letter to Council that detailed her concerns. 

The house is a “place for people to get drunk, use profanity and antagonize neighbors,” she wrote, noting how she suspected that those who lived there were either using or selling drugs.

Next door neighbor Stanley Kreft also told the Council that residents there have been using his driveway without his permission, blaring rap music and shining spotlights into his windows. Kreft said he was so annoyed with the home that he installed a privacy fence to block it from view.

Monroe also recounted how someone staying at the house once awoke on her neighbor’s doorstep after a late-night party and how another man there threw a brick through her window.

Code enforcement officials have repeatedly ticketed the homeowner — which county property records identity as Ameil Moore — for trash and overgrown weeds. The latest ticket that was issued last week led to a city staffer being threatened and chased off the property, officials said.

City officials said about $3,800 in back taxes (almost enough to trigger a foreclosure) are also still owed on the property, as well as a growing number of fines for various code violations.

Councilwoman Carol Wood has called for a meeting on Thursday (Nov. 18) with top city officials — including Police Chief Ellery Sosebee — amid an effort to assess the city’s options, including arresting those who are still residing at the home for trespassing on a red-tagged property.

She also said that she’s prepared to have the home declared a nuisance if problems persist.

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