423 23rd Avenue North ("The House Of Annoyance")

Photo Used Under "Fair Comment And Criticism"

My fellow Housing Board member, Michael Klick, Attorney At Law, was kind enough to tell me the story of 423 23rd Ave. N., which Michael and his boyfriend have nicknamed "The House of Annoyance." Well, actually...

There is more to the nickname than that, but I've said enough.

New Owners, Hopefully A New Story?

The reason "423" was on our radar at all was because of its bad history. When a property changes hands, you know for sure one of three things will happen: it will get better, worse, or stay the same. Naturally, one hopes to have an impact and "push toward the better."

Late last month, Michael Klick told me, "I just talked to the new owners of 423 23rd Ave. N. The guy's name is Doug something. He says he doesn't own any other places in North Minneapolis."

Michael says, "I strongly stated that it is best to get good tenants in there. There are very active people around here that will have no problem calling the police and the city on this property if they get terrible people in there. He (the owner) said he is hesitant about getting property in North Minneapolis.

"I told him about the last tenants in there and how we worked to get them thrown out of there. I think he got my point. Here we go again."

The House Of Annoyance

Michael says, "It was a terrible house. You can talk with Joan (from the Public Safety Committee) about this. They were absolutely filthy, loud and just disrespectful. Every car that they had had no muffler. They would just sit out there with their music blaring all the time.

"There was always some junk on the property. The porch was full of junk and beer cans. They had large pit bulls that were seen periodically. The back yard was even worse than the front yard, but we never saw it. Joan did. They used to throw their cigarette butts all over Joan's neighboring garden. Ask her about the situation when they actually spit on her from the second story window."

Michael says, "We worked for a year to get that place shut down. They moved out in the spring, and since then, 23rd Ave. quieted down a lot."