Tremont friends---

Attached is a PDF of my letter to the absentee landlord of the house across the street from me, 1425 Starkweather, REAR, for your information.
 

P.S. Please please please turn on your porch lights!!!
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18 April 2009
Don A. Lutz Lutz Property Management LLC
1306 West 116th Street Cleveland, OH 44102
2461 Scranton Road Cleveland, OH 44113
216-228-0346 216-781-2856

Dear Mr. Lutz:
I am writing to you because of the continuous and ongoing problems at your property at 1425
Starkweather, REAR, facing my house on West 15th Street in the Tremont neighborhood. As you know, I
have contacted you before about the sketchy characters you rent to at this property. When I first bought
my house in 1995, your renter Kenny kicked in my back door and later stole my $150 extension ladder,
and the problems have continued nonstop ever since. Currently, you have three long-term residents
(Shirley Jocys, Jennifer Wagner and Perry Rilliford), but there are many, many young people coming and
going at this house — in fact, new teenagers and 20-somethings appear every single week, sometimes
staying overnight for a while, sometimes only showing up once for a few minutes. The implications are
obvious. This house is the classic trouble spot in the neighborhood. There seems to be frequent drug
activity taking place on a regular basis, and you don’t seem to have any concern about what happens here.
These young visitors make lots of noise honking, honking, honking, peeling in and peeling out with their
souped-up cars, setting off their car alarms, Jennifer’s young black male visitor and his two dogs that he
ties up with only a six-foot rope, the young white man who sits in his maroon Chevy HHR in the Pilgrim
Church parking lot next to my house, waiting for Jennifer to come home, the two young black men who
walk right in the door and go upstairs to purchase drugs (according to one neighbor who talks with them),
the young Latino woman whose visitor honks and honks and honks to see if she’s there, the other young
people who look like they should be in school but never are. Nobody seems to have a regular job, Jennifer
is school age but never seems to attend school, and nobody cares at all how much garbage accumulates on
or around the property. I could detail the police visits, the fake ambulance calls (including one today), the
late-night drama with boyfriends shouting into windows. There is absolutely no sense of permanence, no
sense of ownership, no sense of neighborhood for the people you rent to. As a completely absentee
landlord, do you have any idea what is going on at your property? Do you care? It is clear that you don’t.
I’ve been putting up with your trashy renters for FIFTEEN YEARS now, and I am very, very tired of it. I
realize that there is little I can do to convince you to give a damn about West 15th Street or the
neighborhood in general, but I am writing anyway, so that you cannot pretend you don’t know what’s
going on. I am copying this letter to people in the neighborhood who actually DO CARE, so that they will
be aware of the suspicious activity taking place on a regular basis at 1425 Starkweather, REAR (W 15th).
A homeowner who actually lives here and cares about his neighborhood,

Brooke Willis
2590 West 15th Street
Cleveland, OH 44113-4460
216-861-4946

Cc: Joe Cimperman, Ward 13 Councilman, 601 Lakeside Ave, Rm 220, Cleveland 44114
Keith Sulzer, Cleveland Police District 2 Commander, 3481 Fulton Rd, Cleveland 44109
Chris Garland, Tremont West Development Corporation executive director, 2406 Professor St, Cleveland 44113
Edward Rybka, City of Cleveland Building & Housing Dept., director, 601 Lakeside Ave, Rm 510, Cleveland 44114
Dorothy Noga McCarthy, CMHA Housing Choice Voucher Program, 3400 Hamilton Ave, Cleveland 44114
Sister Corita Ambro, St. Augustine Catholic Church, 2486 West 14th Street, Cleveland 44113
The Rev. John Tamilio, Pilgrim Congregational UCC senior pastor, 2592 West 14th Street, Cleveland 44113
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