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There's strange stuff left behnd
By Rick Armon
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Monday, Jan 28, 2008
Melanie Craddock walked out of a side office carrying an old shoe box.
Inside, curled up in a ball and covered with a few cobwebs, was a cat skeleton, its bony tail sticking out over the side.
Craddock, owner of Loyal Oak Property Services, found the dead kitty in a foreclosed home in Cleveland and decided to keep it.
An unusual find? No way.
The frontline workers who handle foreclosure evictions, including cleanup crews and sheriff's deputies, are used to odd — in addition to gross, sad, funny and frightening — discoveries in homes caught up in Ohio's foreclosure crisis.
As the state's foreclosure problem festers, the eviction business is booming. The Summit County Sheriff's Office handled 227 foreclosure evictions last year alone, a 136 percent increase since 2003. And every time deputies are there to make sure a property is vacated, so are the cleanup crews, hired by banks and mortgage holders to fix up and secure the property so it's in decent condition to re-sell.
Craddock founded Loyal Oak Property Services, one of many companies that do cleanups, in the mid-1990s and has seen business income grow 3,700 percent from that first year. She declined to cite specific financial figures.
''I was a real-estate agent who realized you can't sell a house filled with trash,'' she said while standing inside her cluttered office in Norton.
Some stories
She and others — including the deputies who handle evictions — can share almost unbelievable stories about what they find and the living conditions they encounter:
Please see Homes A5
There was the man who was too lazy to get off the couch to use the bathroom. He used buckets and balloons to relieve himself, leaving them on the living room floor.
There was the elderly woman who locked her cats in the attic to starve them to death. They left claw marks on the door in a mad attempt to get out.
There was the dog's body, its head missing, found on the kitchen floor. The head was in a pot cooking on the stove.
They find cockroaches, fleas, drug paraphernalia and, on a rare occasion, a meth lab.
''Before we started doing this, I had no idea,'' said Vanessa Moore, who runs Secure Domains of East Rochester in Columbiana County. ''It shows how bad the economy really is.''
In most cases, the former homeowner is gone and the property is vacant when cleanup crews and deputies show up for the official eviction. But on occasion, they encounter people who are reluctant to leave or even a dangerous situation.
Suicides, bombs
''Sometimes they are in denial all the way up until the time that Deputy Ohls comes knocking on the door to tell them that they have to move,'' Summit Sheriff's Deputy Joe Ohls said.
Deputies have found people who committed suicide. A few years ago in Northfield, a man set fire to the house the night before the eviction, not wanting the bank to take possession.
One time in Akron, they discovered a homemade device set up to look like a bomb. The county bomb squad came out and blew up the backpack.
The cleanup crews, whose job is to haul out trash and abandoned possessions, can tell why the foreclosure eviction happened just by what's left behind.
In the case of divorce, they find wedding albums, photos of happier times and, sometimes, nasty messages scrawled on the walls. If the case involved an illness, medical equipment such as casts, walkers and wheelchairs are found.
For whatever reason, they also find a lot of abandoned bowling balls.
Then, there are the spiteful folks. Unhappy that they are losing their home, they trash the property. It doesn't matter whether they are rich or poor.
They knock holes in the wall. Steal marble and granite countertops. Smash bottles on the floors. Break furniture. Rip up carpeting. And spread feces around.
One former owner of a multi-million-dollar home in Solon plugged up the sinks and tubs and turned the water on before leaving. By the time it was discovered, contractors estimated there had been at least $1 million worth of damage to the home.
''If they want to go nuts, they go nuts,'' said Philip Sanders, a private contractor who works with Loyal Oak.
Decent stuff saved
He once found a diary in a home in Bainbridge Township in Geauga County. It detailed crazy sex parties that were held in the house and the female writer's pledge to return to a life of celibacy. Her vow ended eight days later.
''I could have took that journal and turned it into a book,'' Sanders said.
Needless to say, he recommends that people not leave such private possessions behind.
Some people, though, have no qualms about abandoning their stuff.
Storage units throughout Northeast Ohio are filled with items taken from foreclosed homes. The junky items are taken to the landfill. The cleanup companies hang onto the quality possessions for 30 days and then have to decide what to do with them if they aren't claimed.
''We come across some really decent stuff,'' Sanders said while standing inside a storage unit on Barber Road. ''It's amazing what some people will walk away from.''
Inside this unit, there are a riding lawn mower, couch, end tables, chairs and other items — all in good condition.
Foreclosure evictions are an ugly business, but Craddock has tried to bring a little positive spin to the job. She donates usable items to needy organizations and people, including JC's Place, Community Pregnancy Center and Seventh-day Adventist Community Service Center.
''There is a tremendous need and she is definitely making a difference in helping people out,'' said K.C. Kantorik, direct client services coordinator with the Barberton Area Community Ministries.
Loyal Oak has more items than it can give away and Craddock is on the lookout for more places to take donations. The company can be contacted at 330-825-8258.
''We could keep them so loaded,'' she said. ''I can't keep up.''
Rick Armon can be reached at 330-996-3569 or rarmon@thebeaconjournal.com.
Melanie Craddock walked out of a side office carrying an old shoe box.
Get the full article here.
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