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Luzerne County trying to unload more property

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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; At the rate a row home a few doors down from Carol Macheska&#8217;s home is falling apart, she says it could collapse before the city gets around to looking at the long vacant property.</p><p>Macheska estimated the row house at 64 E. Bennett St. has been unoccupied and not kept up since the late 1970s. She&#8217;s lived in 72 E. Bennett St., at the other end of a mirror copy of row homes since 1965, and watched the neighboring property decay for decades while notifying the city of the growing problem.</p><p>&#8220;Obviously, it has to be torn down,&#8221; Macheska, 78, said Friday. &#8220;Their concern for it being addressed is for the birds.&#8221;</p><p>The city hired a contractor to demolish two blighted properties at the end of the block in June, but the closest it came to the eyesore near Macheska was issuing a citation for a code violation to one of the row homes and conducting a rental inspection on another. As recently as last month, she sent an email to a member of city council and was told to contact the council member for her district.</p><p>Her correspondence dates back to 2006 when she said she took photographs of the property to City Hall, only to be told the owner, listed in county records as Joseph Lombardo Inc. of Pittston, had taken out a building permit for repairs.</p><p>&#8220;Nobody ever touched that house, &#8221; Macheska said.</p><p>Attempts to reach the owner Friday were unsuccessful.</p><p>A fence Macheska put up in her backyard keeps the eyesore across the alley out of view. But up close, what was once a fenced-in yard in the rear of the neighboring property is choked with brush, garbage and several trees.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s in the backyard as far as garbage goes,&#8221; Macheska said. It&#8217;s become a dumping ground for King&#8217;s College students who live off-campus and dispose of their furniture and junk when they move out of their rented houses, she added.</p><p>&#8220;These trees didn&#8217;t get planted,&#8221; Macheska said as looked into the back yard of the property.</p><p>The limbs and trunks of the trees press against the awning on the back porch and the rear of the brick house. Broken and missing windows reveal an inside cluttered with furniture and debris and blue sky is visible through the roof joists above the second floor. Out front, the railings are gone and the floor boards and wooden columns supporting the porch roof are bare and weathered and in stark contrast to the entrances of other homes in the area.</p><p>Living next door to the dilapidated house for seven years, Carl Kochanski said he hasn&#8217;t had any problems with leaks on his side at 62 E. Bennett St. He&#8217;s noticed some cracks in the interior walls, he said.</p><p>The scene outside his front door is another story.</p><p>&#8220;I worry about the post falling and then the whole damn thing coming down,&#8221; Kochanski said of the corner support with a decaying base.</p><p>Macheska noticed it, too.</p><p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t understand how they left this go so long without doing something,&#8221; she said.</p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_bennettst01.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Carol Macheska has complained about a vacant neighboring row home at 64 E. Bennett St. in Wilkes-Barre and watched it decay for years. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_bennettst01.jpg</photo0><caption0>Carol Macheska has complained about a vacant neighboring row home at 64 E. Bennett St. in Wilkes-Barre and watched it decay for years. </caption0><photoCredit0>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_bennettst02.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The backyard of 64 E. Bennett St. in Wilkes-Barre is choked with brush, strewn with junk and crowded with trees that have grown on the property that neighbors say has been vacant for years. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_bennettst02.jpg</photo1><caption1>The backyard of 64 E. Bennett St. in Wilkes-Barre is choked with brush, strewn with junk and crowded with trees that have grown on the property that neighbors say has been vacant for years. </caption1><photoCredit1>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Wilkes-Barre property vacant for decades getting worse, neighbors say