'War zone': Melbourne cracks down on decrepit nuisance house inhabited by squatters
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The blackened wreckage of a burnt-out recreational vehicle sits amid heaps of rotting garbage, discarded lumber and broken furniture alongside a ramshackle house in Melbourne's Sherwood Park neighborhood.
Squatters have lived in tents and makeshift tarp shelters in the debris-strewn backyard. The derelict home at 4445 Sherwood Blvd. — which has racked up more than $50,000 in code enforcement violations and fines — has neither water, sewer nor electrical service.
A February foreclosure sale was canceled, court records show. Melbourne's police SWAT team detained multiple people and seized an array of narcotics during a raid last month.
And neighbors don't let their children play nearby for fear of the home's inhabitants walking up and down the street, Melbourne City Council Member Tim Thomas said.
More:Brightline to launch 110-mph test runs in Melbourne, Palm Shores, Suntree and Rockledge
More:Investigators probe Spessard Holland North Beach Park shootings that left 1 dead, 1 wounded
“You go by, you look at that house — it literally looks like you’re in a war zone. It’s that bad,” Thomas, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, said during the March 14 City Council meeting.
"There's about 11 people in and out of that house at all hours of the evening that are probably transporting drugs in and out," Thomas said.
"They're also taking the carcass of that RV: They're cutting it up. Because then they can go off and they can sell it, probably to get drugs or whatever else," he said.
During that meeting, the City Council unanimously authorized legal action against the dilapidated home's owner, Gerald Emerson. Unless a cleanup occurs, a Brevard County Circuit Court civil filing should occur about April 12, city spokesperson Cheryl Mall said.
What's more, Thomas said the home's occupants follow a bicycle path into the adjacent Wickham Forest neighborhood — "there's drug traffic from those zombie folks going into Wickham Forest."
"4445 Sherwood Blvd. has remained under the same ownership since 1990, with the property respondent(s)' remaining unresponsive, complicit and/or obstinate about continuing and worsening code violations, unsanitary health and safety conditions, vagrant and criminal activity and associated adverse impacts for the two communities," a code enforcement staff report said.
Emerson addressed the City Council during that March 14 meeting. He said he recently moved back to the property and has tried to clean things up, but a previous male occupant had let homeless people stay at the house. He said there were still four or five people at the home that he was "having trouble getting rid of.”
“I felt sorry for some of them. They were homeless, had no place to go. So I let them stay here for a while. But now, (it’s) very hard to get rid of them. And I’ve honestly been getting stuff stolen," Emerson said.
'Condemned Occupancy Prohibited' signs
The nuisance property at 4445 Sherwood Blvd. is a 1,636-square-foot single-family home with a fenced backyard built in 1962 on a 0.2-acre lot, property records show.
Melbourne code officials posted yellow "Condemned Occupancy Prohibited" signs Tuesday on the house's doors and windows. That means occupancy is prohibited and punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. Acting City Attorney Adam Conley said people may have been living in recreational vehicles on-site in violation of city code.
Emerson could not be reached for comment after the home was condemned.
Melbourne's traditional code-enforcement procedures have not worked in this instance: The property has generated 15 code enforcement liens and cases since September 1998, records show. Violations and fines exceed $50,000, Interim City Manager Jenni Lamb said.
By the end of May, Lamb said she wants to schedule a City Council discussion about code enforcement, including steps the city can take to assure compliance.
"1998 and beyond, $50,000-plus in code enforcement. We shouldn't have gotten this far," Council Member Julie Sanders said of the Sherwood Boulevard case.
"I don't know if we need to fix something in our policies, procedures, ordinances, whatever. But it shouldn't have gotten this far," Sanders said.
Police, firefighters respond to home
E77, E76, E71, TW71, TW74, E72, D70 and D74 responded to a fully involved RV fire this morning with exposures to a structure. Melbourne Firefighters worked in the fast attack and quickly extinguished the fire. Strong work!
Posted by Melbourne Professional Fire Fighters Local 1951 on Saturday, February 11, 2023
Conley said alleged activities at the run-down house have recently escalated.
On Feb. 2, the Melbourne police SWAT team executed a search warrant at the house, detained multiple people, and seized about 11 grams of fentanyl, 21 grams of methamphetamine and 22 grams of cocaine.
A suspect was arrested and charged with trafficking methamphetamine, possession of fentanyl and possession of methamphetamine.
In a press release, police labeled the house "a nuisance location" that had generated more than 35 service calls from January 2022 to January 2023, including suspicious and wanted persons, disturbances and noise complaints.
Then on Feb. 11, Melbourne firefighters rushed to the scene as rippling orange flames consumed the front half of the RV parked alongside the house. Black smoke billowed into the sky across the Sherwood Park neighborhood.
Squatters who refused to leave
Vice Mayor Mark LaRusso questioned how Emerson could claim a homestead exemption on the property if he does not live there on a full-time basis. Emerson said he left because, "I didn't like everything that was going on with the guy that was here before."
That's when Alfrey, who grew up in the Sherwood Park neighborhood, clashed with Emerson.
"Mr. Emerson, you are the owner. And you didn't like what was going on there. How do you think your neighbors felt? No, seriously. I can't think how many phone calls I've gotten because of that residence," Alfrey told Emerson.
Alfrey asked Emerson if he had invited the police over for a cup of coffee to help clear the place out. Emerson said he had not — and he feared retaliation. Emerson said he believes the RV was set afire by someone he had trespassed off the property.
The day after the March 14 City Council meeting, Mayor Paul Alfrey visited the property with an Orlando television news crew. Alfrey shot video of Emerson and another man walking through the debris-strewn backyard, shooing away squatters.
Melbourne's similar legal actions
In July 2020, the City Council authorized a code enforcement-based court complaint about a house occupied by trespassers and vagrants on Old Oak Street near downtown Eau Gallie. Melbourne police had received 165 calls for service from 2014 to 2018 at that property, which had neither electrical nor water service.
The homeowner sold the property a year later, and the city dismissed the lawsuit afterward. The home is now refurbished.
In June 2021, the City Council similarly pursued litigation against the owner of a dilapidated Eau Gallie home where multiple people had fatally overdosed and a man had been beaten and killed.
That home — which had languished in foreclosure since 2007 — is located on Garfield Street in the Bowe Gardens neighborhood, northeast of the intersection of Sarno and Croton roads. A new owner purchased the property during a November 2021 foreclosure sale, and the home is now refurbished.
Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1
Support local journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Melbourne cracks down on 'war zone' house inhabited by squatters
