Listen Live
Listen Live Graphics (Indy)

INDIANAPOLIS — The abandoned and half-way burned down house at 2310 S. Harlan Street is still standing. That’s the opposite of what neighbors want to see of the dilapidated house, which has become a home to squatters and unwelcome activity.

“I look out my window, I see that it’s still here,” Kattrina Conningham said. “I come to bus stop and stand with my daughter right there and see that it’s still there and there may or may not be people in there.”

It was two weeks and six days ago when WRTV was last outside the house with Conningham who, along with her neighbor, Robin Wood-Gebhart, has been pushing to get the house torn down for years.

“We were actually told by someone that they’ve already paid for it to be demoed, it’s just the delay supposedly now is the pandemic. However we were told that it would be torn down by the end of September,” Wood-Gebhart said.

On August 25, the city told WRTV demolition on the house would begin in two to three weeks. Two weeks has passed and Tuesday marks three weeks. But both neighbors say they’ve heard that song before.

“But remember it was the first quarter of the year,” Conningham said.

“No, it was the end of 2019, no later than the first quarter of the following year,” Wood-Gebhart said.

“Yes!” Conningham said.

Those are just some of the times in the past year when WRTV has taken the concerns of these neighbors to city leaders. The city tells WRTV a contracted demolition crew is now expected to start demolishing the house next Monday. Both neighbors understand that there is a process to knocking down a building. What they don’t understand is why it takes this long to knock down a house that has unwelcome guests and at one point even needles in the front yard.

“It’s been a year-fight with the news involved. But before you guys, it was about a year and a half before that. So, all together we’ve been fighting for 2 and a half years. Why does it take 2 and a half years for the kids in our neighborhood to feel safe?”