Centralia Community Development Director Gayla Harting says various city departments participated last Thursday in clearing ten residents from a boarded-up two-story old apartment house without running water.
Harting says the house at 334 North Elm is adjacent to and used to be part of the Midtown Motel before the remainder of the motel was sold to another owner.
The city will now move to get the home torn down by its owner or seek a court order to demolish it.
The owner of the property, Dr. Vinod Gupta who formerly resided in Mt. Vernon, had told the city he had quit renting out the building, boarded it up, and turned off the water and no one should be there.
While the owner indicated anyone in the building were squatters, some of those in the building indicated the former property manager was still coming around collecting rent.
Harting says residents would remove the boards to get in and out and the water system had been tampered with to get some of the water turned back on. She described the conditions as ‘nasty’.
The problem of the ‘squatters’ became clearer when a fire broke out in one of the rooms in the apartment house earlier this month. The fire was confined to one room, but others in the building had to evacuate during the fire. A grandmother had then come to the building to help move a family member who had overdosed.
Harting says several other family members were assisting others in moving their belongings out of the building when city officials moved in.
The Centralia Code Enforcement Department was assisted by Centralia and Central City Police, the water department, as well as a parole officer and probation officer. One of those removed was arrested on an outstanding warrant.
Meanwhile, Harting says the new owners of the shuttered Midtown Motel are in the process of making repairs in hopes of being able to reopen.
