A Georgia homeowner’s southwest Atlanta house was demolished while she was away on vacation.
She found out that her home was being reduced to rubble after a neighbor called her to ask if she’d hired a team to destroy the house.
Sarah Hodgson said she told the neighbor she did no such a thing and was further informed that a company had come and “just demolished the whole house and tore it all down.” She was outraged.
“I am furious. I keep waking up thinking, ‘Is this all a joke or something?’ I’m just in shock,” Hodgson said in an interview with the Associated Press.
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According to the woman, her neighbor confronted the “You Call It We Haul It” demolition team, and they “told her to shut up and mind her own business.”
Hodgson eventually contacted a person from her family to go and look at the property. The person spoke to the site supervisor, who checked the permit and admitted to tearing down the wrong house.
Instead of offering a resolution, he then ordered the work crew to pack up their gear and leave. However, by this time, Hodgson’s home was gone.
Hodgson did not live in the home but says while vacant, it was not abandoned.
“[The house has] been boarded up about 15 years, and we keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean. The taxes are paid, and everything is up on it,” she explained.
Now she is considering pressing charges, asking, “How do people just go up and tear somebody’s property down and then just drive off?” adding, “I just wish he would come fix the problem that he caused.”
After filing a police report, she reached out to a lawyer to help her figure out her next moves.
“We’re still in this process of figuring out what to do,” said Hodgson. “We keep pressing in different directions to see if something is going to happen.”
You Call It We Haul It released a statement to FOX Atlanta saying they launched an investigation into the incident. Despite the company saying it is working on some sort of resolution, Hodgson says no one reached out to her.
“I think he owes us an apology, and he needs to fix the problem. He needs to fix the problem,” Hodgson said.
In August 2023, a similar incident happened to another Atlanta resident.
The demolition was not done by a private company but by the city. Now, the city is suing the man for the demolition costs, threatening to foreclose on what’s left of the property to recover the demolition costs.
Like Hodgson, the city’s demolition team, according to homeowner Everett Tripodis, had the wrong address.
“I’m not going to let the city take this from me. I’m going to fight them tooth and nail,” Tripodis said, according to WSB-TV.
Tripodis said when he saw he received something from the city, he got “excited,” thinking he was going to get correspondence expressing the city’s regret for destroying his home.
“Maybe it was a letter of apology. Maybe it was a check,” he thought. “Maybe they’re going to justly compensate me. I opened it up and realized they were suing me.”
Apparently, the city sent notices via certified mail to the house telling him that the city inspector determined the house was unfit for habitation. But they sent it to the wrong address, and the letters came back to them “returned to sender,” according to Tripodis.
The house named in the demolition hearing was on Lawton Avenue in 30314, and Tripodis’ home was 30310, a little over a mile away.
Like Hodgson, Tripodis has yet to recover his losses.
