Neighbors' nightmare on Wheeler Street almost over

For well more than a decade, neighbors of a sickeningly decrepit, moldy, varmint-infested Santa Rosa house have pleaded with City Hall to do something about it.|
CHRIS SMITH
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The nightmare on Santa Rosa's historic Wheeler Street, near Luther Burbank Home & Gardens, at last abates.

For well more than a decade, neighbors of a sickeningly decrepit, moldy, varmint-infested house pleaded with City Hall to do something about it. One problem: the elderly woman who inherited the house from her mother and abandoned it for a motel room wouldn't answer the door for officials hoping to discuss the problem.

Weeks ago, the city persuaded a judge to place the property in receivership. Now a law firm specializing in such projects is having great loads of fouled furniture, debris and filth carted off. The firm will list the property for sale after deciding if the house can be sold as a fixer-upper or should be rehabbed or simply scraped away.

One day, the neighbors will welcome warmly whoever moves into the restored or new but historically consistent home that will displace Wheeler Street's little house of horror.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD

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