Hyattsville's Vacant Houses Part Two: Neighbors Say Abandoned House Has Been Home to Squatters

Editor's Note: This is part 2 in a series on vacant homes in Hyattsville.

On the outside it’s white with dark red trim.  A broken down porch boasts missing bricks and rusty metalwork.

Neighbors said this vacant house, at 2805 Jamestown Road, was abandoned after the death of its owner several years ago. They said the house has been broken into and lived in by derelicts, a situation that frightens them.

“The city has got to do something [about the house],” said one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous because she lives very close by and was concerned about retribution to her own home. “Homeless people are living there. You see them coming and going.”

State tax data shows the one-story, 792 square-foot house was built in 1940. The house, which has a basement and is enclosed by a chain link fence, sits on 5,000 square feet of land. Its base value—the full cash value of the property before the most recent assessment—was estimated at $335,690. In January 2010 it was valued at $207,300.

According to the state tax record, the house is owned by 89-year-old Friedel M. Fitzpatrick. Neighbor Joan Vogelson said the family who lived at 2805 has not lived there for a while.

“It’s pretty bad,” she said of the house. “There are holes in all the roofs. It’s literally falling apart. All the windows are broken.”

Vogelson said the father, Friedel Fitzpatrick, died first, then later his wife.

“[The father] did all the work,” she said. “After he died [the wife] had a hard time getting her son to just cut the grass. Nobody was able to do anything with it, you know?”

Vogelson remembers squatters living in the house soon after the owners abandoned it.

“I think they were probably coming in at night and sleeping there. People who didn’t have any place to go,” she said, adding that stopped when new locks were put on the doors.

Inspector David Hill submitted a violation notice on Oct.6, 2010 stating that the front door needed a lock, city records show. A follow-up comment dated Oct. 10, 2010 indicates that all violations grouped with the lock item were corrected but does not indicate who made those changes.

Citations currently are posted to the front door but Patch was unable to read them from the sidewalk.

Code records show eight citations with multiple violations from Jan. 12, 2010 to Sept. 19, 2011.

Some of these violations are:

• Large holes in the roof;

• Roof appears to be about to collapse;

• Tall grass;

• Gas pipe replacement on stove; and

• Trash and debris.

A citation dated Feb. 7, 2011 by Inspector Joseph Brewer indicates that the house should be demolished but records show no follow up comments regarding when or by whom that would happen.

While not providing a specific reason why this house hasn't been knocked down, City Spokeswoman Abby Sandel said demolition is generally the last resort for homes and that the process can be lengthy and very involved.