What information do new homeowners really get?

When a home is completely trashed, like the one being rented on Schumate Chapel Drive in Cole County, does the new owner or renter have the right to know?

Marc Ellinger with the Cole County Commission said the County has a nuisance ordinance in place to help these types of situations, but they are not obligated to release any information to new owners.

However, he said there are other ways for people to find out.

“Everything is public notice of everything that’s gone on,” said Ellinger.

Ellinger said there is a list of what’s happened in this home on the county’s website.

The new owner, William Ott, said he is going to disclose everything that happened.

“I’m taking pictures of the inside and what we’re doing to it so if someone buys the property a year or two from now they know that it’s all been gutted and re-done. Everything new,” said Ott.

He said he knows there is a stigma attached to this house and could be difficult to sell.

“From the way it looks, there’s not going to be any money made on this one here. I’ll be lucky if I don’t lose money.”

Ott said he can only think of one situation comparable to this one.

“It’s like I’m back in Florida during the hurricanes again. It was that bad.”

He also said in the past week they have taken 40 trailer loads of trash from the house.

They have also ripped up the carpet and started treating the home.

“I’m not really sure what the next step is. Right now we’re just focusing on cleaning the rest of the property up and we’re almost done with it,” said Ott.

He also said he has heard the renters who trashed the home have already managed to burn the kitchen down in the new place they are living in.

This time it’s in the city.

Ellinger said the nuisance ordinance is put in place so property owners can clean their property up within a certain length of time.

If they don’t get it cleaned, the county hires contractors to do the work and will bill the owners.

If that bill does not get paid they tack the bill onto their tax bill at the end of the year.