 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Vandals continue assault on house
By MIKE SAEWITZ
© St. Petersburg Times,
She is ready to sell -- perhaps to a church that would tear it down for parking, perhaps to someone else. Neighborhood Times told her story a few months ago. Since then, some things have evolved. A middle-schooler accused of setting a fire inside the home faces a juvenile court date in a few weeks. Yet vandalism continues. Her granddaughter, Linda Currie, still parks her car outside her grandmother's house morning after morning before work, hoping to catch whoever is dropping orange peels and empty chocolate milk cartons on her grandmother's porch, whoever is leaving the front door of the unoccupied house wide open, whoever is writing obscenities in pencil on the garage. "It's ridiculous," she said. "I try to tell my grandmother as little as possible so she doesn't go to bed thinking about (the vandalism)." "I just want to get it off my mind," Mrs. Ishmel said of her home on Prescott Street near the interstate and 16th Street S. "I just want to sell it." Mrs. Ishmel lived quietly alone in the house for more than 30 years after her husband died, even as the loud Interstate 275, then Tropicana Field and finally a rebuilt and larger school -- John Hopkins Middle School -- surrounded her, all less than a block away. Mrs. Ishmel, who has diabetes and arthritis, moved out of her house after a man mugged her for $50 in her living room less than three years ago. She now shares a five-bedroom house with her 68-year-old daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter and great-grandson. The house had been unoccupied for at least the last year when Mrs. Ishmel decided to sell. Mrs. Ishmel had three offers -- then the fires were lit in her living room and bedroom. Two 12-year-old students skipped school at John Hopkins and lit two fires in the house about 11:30 a.m. on April 2, police said. The student who was arrested told police he lit a match in the bedroom but not in the living room. Wearing a pink dress and a light blue stocking cap, Mrs. Ishmel sits with her daughter, Cornelia Rollins, and talks about the house. They're watching a Jenny Jones segment called "Are You Cheating on Me?" Rollins loves the show, but Mrs. Ishmel prefers Wheel of Fortune and Price is Right. Mrs. Ishmel holds her head, which she banged on a counter. She said she fell last week. "My body just gives out on me," she said. "Some days I have bad days." Mrs. Ishmel told a state attorney she did not want the student accused of setting a fire to go to jail, Currie said. Since she has no insurance on the house, she would like the parents to pay for repairs, such as cleaning the charred walls and carpets. Last month, the New Covenant Church next door expressed interest in buying the house and tearing it down to expand the church and create parking, Currie said. An invester made a $28,000 offer for the house before the fires, but Mrs. Ishmel wants $35,000. Mrs. Ishmel entrusted Currie with selling the house. "She's waiting on me, and I'm lost," Currie said. "It's money-making land. I don't want her to give it away." Whatever happens in July at the trial might determine the family's actions. "If we don't hear anything by July 3, we're going to find the highest bidder and sell it," Currie said. "She's determined to sell the house. She says she doesn't feel she's going to be here long."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times South Pinellas desks |
