Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

VALLEY — A Valley man has been given 30 days to make some improvements to a home he owns or the city will take it down and clean up the lot.

Tim Hereford owns the house on 30th Street in Todd Addition. He has rented it out in the past, but in recent years it has been abandoned and its condition has deteriorated. When the house was set for demolition, Hereford told the council he made efforts to save the house, including cleaning up the yard and putting on a new roof. The windows remain boarded up, and that’s the sticking point with the council.

Hereford said that he’d been trying to clean up the property and get it back to the city’s expectations but has not been able to work due to COVID-19.

“It’s put a limit on my income,” he told the council. “I haven’t made anything since St. Patrick’s Day. I have been able to clean up the yard and pile everything on the curb to be carried away.”

Code Enforcement Officer Reid Riley agreed with that and that the yard did look much better. He added that he’d significantly improved the house with the new roof but that more work had to be done, especially with the installation of new windows. Riley said that the interior of the house needed much in the way of improvements before anyone could live in it.

Mayor Leonard Riley asked Hereford if he thought it would be a slow process for him to get the house back in livable condition. Hereford replied that it probably would be since he had not been able to work for some time.

“I could probably sell some scrap iron and put in some new windows,” he said.

Riley told Hereford the city would delay abating the house for 30 days to give him some time to do that.

“Those boarded-up windows need to be fixed,” he said. “If we can get everything on the outside looking decent, I think we can move on with this.”

Council Member Randall Maddux, who represents the Todd Addition area, said it’s clear that Hereford had made some improvements on the lot.

“He’s done a lot of work in cleaning off some grown-up areas,” he said.

“If you replace those windows and keep the yard cleaned up, it will help,” Riley said. “But those windows have to be replaced. We will look at this again in 30 days. If that hasn’t been done we’ll probably take it down.”