Our 10,000th demolition is finally here, and it didn’t come without a great story!
Located on Holyrood Road in Cleveland, just about a mile west of Wade Oval and south of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens – two beautiful regional icons, this home was much in need of demolition. Beyond adding serious blight to this historic cozy street, neighbors on the left and right were ready to see this eyesore come down.
“I’m excited for that abandoned house to come down,” said Jacqueline Roseberry, a Holyrood resident. “With the house as it is, my neighbor and I have seen people who don’t belong in there coming and going. We don’t know why or who they were, but they don’t belong there and they make the house unsafe.”
Sydney Smith, Holyrood homeowner for 25 years, watched happily as the home came down. “I can’t tell you how depressed looking at this house has made me,” he said. “We take care of our homes and look out for each other, and this house didn’t look like that.”
Like every house scheduled to be removed, our variety of contractors do one final check to ensure it’s cleaned out and no asbestos, animals or other items are found. In the case of the house on Holyrood, our abatement contractor entered the home only to be greeted by the noise of two recently hatched birds.
The first step was to contact critter control, who then informed us that the two chicks were baby vultures. Though the adult versions are known to be aggressive and predatory, black and turkey vultures are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, meaning lethal action cannot be taken against them. And while this tactic was never even considered, the process to remove the birds from the home was involved, specific and delicate – all delaying the demolition of the house.
Critter control helped direct us to the local preservationist team at the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center. With their direction and guidance, Cuyahoga Land Bank’s Director of Community Stabilization Adam Stalder along with Environmental and Properties Specialist Sarah Drab headed to the house on Holyrood to clear it of the baby birds. As the Science Center’s team informed Stalder and Drab, the birds may hiss and throw up – both common reactions to buzzards in stress. To no disappointment, the birds did both.
With protective gear on and delicately, Stalder entered the home, ensured that no mama bird was nearby acting as the protector and scooped up the two birds, securing them in a box. Sarah and Adam moved the box to Adam’s car, which he had to drive 30 minutes with the birds hissing at him from the back. Upon arrival, Tim Jasinski, the science center’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Specialist, jumped in to help.
Jasinski not only offered the guidance we needed to properly extract the baby birds, he also took them in and re-housed them with the Center’s resident mother bird! (In our last update with the center, the mother took them in nicely, offering the necessary nurture they needed.)
On August 21, 2024, the house on Holyrood was finally able to be taken down – after one other delay that involved live electrical wires. Neighbors from up and down the street looked on as the once-asbestos-riddled structure fell to the ground, beginning the process of clearing the lot to become what Roseberry hopes is a play space for her 12 grandchildren. “My neighbor and I want to purchase the property to give all the kids in our lives an area to run and play,” she said.
