This House Needs A Good Home

Photos by John Hoff

Not content with merely sending me pictures and having me blog about the house, today Connie Nompelis convinced me to go on a tour of 2123 6th St. N., for sale for a mere $12,900. And Connie agreed the seller would probably settle for $9,500....

First of all, I'm amazed how much ROOM it has. The basement is huge. The second floor is huge. And then...there's a top floor above the top floor. It has--oh my word--an antique claw foot bathtub.

OK, technically I'm not actually excited about that...I only get excited vicariously, knowing other people--including hot women--get excited about antique claw foot bathtubs.

The wood flooring on the ground floor is in great shape. Connie pointed out something...what was it called? A foursquare ceiling? Something like that.

"Why did they paint that over?" she groaned. I imagine Connie utters that phrase pretty regularly in North Minneapolis. A tanker car of Zip Strip would do a world of good for neighborhood revitalization, here on the North Side.

This house is also on some kind of demolition list. Connie wanted to show me the house and convince me it should NOT be demolished; that it was a piece of valuable housing stock which should be saved, instead.

Admittedly, the house needs a lot of fixes. The entire front porch needs to come off, and I'm afraid that rotten old porch probably gives a bad impression of what is in the house. And there are, yes, water damage issues.

But should this house be torn down? My verdict...and I am loathe to oppose city/county forces, if the house is on some demolition list...IS STILL NO WAY. This is a valuable piece of housing stock which should be saved. There is no evidence of squatting, gang activity, drug activity...well, OK, we found one condom on the second floor. And it was so old I mistook it for some rare fungus for which I would receive botanical glory for its discovery, until I figured out what it was.

SAVE THIS HOUSE. Don't make me sit in front of a bulldozer. I'm getting too old for that kind of stuff, and I just washed my jeans after changing those two slashed tires.

(Our trip to the 2100 block was useful in another way: I called 311 on a house with a broke-in basement window, graffiti on the south wall, and weeds 1 foot high. The lady next door said it takes a month to get graffiti painted over. All the more reason, I say, to call sooner rather than later)