Three months after a mudslide forced three homes on South High Street to be condemned, some students are still unable to return to their home and others are complaining about the slide's aftermath.
Six students who reside at 7 S. High St. have not been permitted to return to their home since it was condemned Jan. 5 as the result of a mudslide caused by excessive rain and soils prone to slippage.
The house was condemned along with 9 1/2 and 11 1/2 S. High St., but residents of these homes have since been allowed to return.
Students living at 7 S. High St. are not expected to be able to return to their home until the fall, said Paul Eschenbacher, Athens code enforcement officer.
Work is being done on the backyard of the house, and additional concrete is being pumped into the ground to reinforce the home's structure, Eschenbacher said.
But Ohio University Junior Sarah Sebastiano, who lives at 7 S. High St., said her landlords, Bob and Nancy Matthews, have told her and her roommates the house could be safe to live in as early as next week.
Sebastiano said this is a tentative date, but she and her roommates, who have already signed a lease to live in the house next year, will not move back in until the fall.
She and her five roommates are living in two apartments at University Commons and are paying the same quarterly rate as everyone else living in the apartments, Sebastiano said.
Their landlord has refunded the money they paid in advance for Winter Quarter and is now working to improve the house by adding new countertops and faucets as well as painting the ceilings.
Sebastiano said her landlord has been great in dealing with the situation and she and her roommates could not have asked for them to handle it better.
Steve Pierson, code enforcement director, said Bob Stewart, who manages the property along with the Matthews, has arranged for five or six truckloads of dirt to be removed from the property.
Removal of dirt on the property and work on making the house safe is now the responsibility of the house's landlord, Eschenbacher said.
Because the code enforcement office only has to assure the house is safe to live in once work is complete, it did not know what company was responsible for work on the house or how much it cost. The repair work is between the landlords and the workers. The landlords with this information did not return phone calls.
And whereas the residents of 7 S. High St. have been pleased with the way the aftermath of the mudslide has been handled, others have not.
OU employee Dominick Brook, who lives at 9 1/2 S. High St., said dirt on his property as a result of the mudslide continues to be as big of a problem as it was right after the mudslide and has even at times prevented him from parking his car.
He said his landlord, Roy Whitmore, has yet to provide a long-term solution to solve the problem.
Esenbachher said the code enforcement office has to assure that the alley, where 9 1/2 and 11 1/2 S. High St. are, is clear and that at this point the alley is clear enough that traffic can pass through.
No damage has been caused to Brook's property, nor has he lost any property as a result of sliding mud, he said.
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Erica Bush
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Residents of 9 1/2 S. High Street have not returned to their house after a mudslide three months ago. The residents have been living in two apartments at University Commons for the last three months.
