Couple worked to repair damage, court said demolish it
Gary and Stella Conrady have worked day after day for months to make their home on McLeansboro Street habitable again after a house fire last year.
They were hard at work on it Tuesday.
Wednesday, the work stopped. The house was gone.
The city of Benton used contractors on Wednesday to demolish the house at 409 McLeansboro St.
When the demolition crew asked Stella to leave the house Wednesday morning, she said the stress sent her to a hospital emergency room.
“The house was gone before I got out of the driveway. They had it flattened in 15 minutes. My lungs seized up and I couldn’t breathe,” she said.
Stella Conrady said it was the house that she had paid off, no longer under a mortgage, and that she and husband, Gary, lived in for about 20 years.
“I had worked hard to have a home without a mortgage,” Stella Conrady said.
A fire on Aug. 28, 2015, would not turn the Conradys away from their house, even though the blaze scorched and charred the living room and kitchen, leaving the wall studs and ceiling joists exposed and blackened.
The Conradys immediately had the house boarded up since windows either broke out or melted.
“I like my little house,” said Stella Conrady, 60, “and not having a mortgage meant that I can pay for medicine that I need.”
The Conradys knew on Tuesday that an order from the Franklin County Circuit Court had been issued on Aug. 12 to raze the home. It was not the first order. The Conradys, who say they could not afford an attorney, filed motions to block two previous demolition orders dated March 4 and May 20.
The final order reads that the city of Benton had permission to take all necessary steps to demolish the house, including the disconnection of all utilities.
The house on Tuesday, in fact, had no utilities — no water, electricity or gas — yet Gary Conrady was staying in the home while the couple said they were working to repair it. He had a makeshift bed in one of the rooms. A car battery provided minimal lighting and ran a radio. A propane stove outside of the house was used for cooking. And a 55-gallon drum of water also was outside for potable purposes.
Stella Conrady stayed at the home, usually during the day. The couple had rented an apartment in Buckner in December. Up to that point, they were both living in the boarded up house with electricity and water service. But it was too cold to stay in the house for the winter, so they took the apartment.
Gary Conrady said Stella and he did not understand why the city was so persistent in wanting to demolish the house. “They were refusing to allow us to fix our home,” he said.
After the August 2015 fire, the city directed the Conradys to “seal up, repair or demolish” the house, Gary Conrady said.
However, the original petition the city filed with the court on Oct. 20 indicated that the house and property had been neglected for some time. Along with the fire, the petition said the house’s integrity was compromised because of poor maintenance; the front porch overhang had deteriorated; the carport was covered in weeds and debris; and the fire damage to the house’s attic had put the building and its electrical wiring in jeopardy.
Stella Conrady maintains that the carport was not overgrown with weeds but had an untrimmed trumpet vine climbing on it that she intentionally planted. She removed the vine and said she heard no more about a nuisance until the October petition.
The demolition petition has little mention of the Conradys being allowed to repair the property. The city’s code enforcement officer at the time, Christopher T. Flener, is reported in the petition to have declared the property and house to be a public hazard.
City attorney Thomas Malkovich filed the petition. On Tuesday, he had no comment on what he said was pending litigation and referred all questions to the court case file.
The rubble left after the house was demolished may appear to some as a sign that the case is no longer pending. But the petition also asked that Stella Conrady, who is listed as the owner of the house, repay the city for any costs it incurs for demolition and clearing the property. In order to ensure the Conradys reimburse the city, Malkovich also asked that a lien be placed on the property to cover any public outlay.
“We don’t have any money, but we are still looking for a lawyer,” Stella Conrady said, wanting to continue to fight the petition.
The Conradys are going to stay in the Buckner apartment “because they have no place else to go,” she said Wednesday.
Reflecting on the past year, Stella Conrady added, “All this time we were thinking that we were making repairs, renovating; we had it closed up and it was never a public hazard as the city kept saying. It was a private residence. It was our home.”
