This Story Almost Beggars Belief,

Everett Tripodis and his mother had bought a century-old house as an investment and had been working on remodelling it,

photograph Gene Gallin/Unsplash, but the city decided to tear it down, a warning was given, but sent to the wrong address, in a different zip code, about 1.4 miles away, “The demolition order itself gave the city and its contractor authority to demolition a home on a completely different street and a completely different zip code,” Tripodis told Channel 2 Action News, adding that the warning letters had gone to another address as well and were ‘returned to sender’. “It blows my mind how they could have mistakenly sent these to the wrong address. I come and meet the contractor one morning, and the whole house is gone. Everything is gone. Nothing but dirt.” 

then things got worse, a letter from the city council arrived, “When I saw that came from the city, I was quite excited,” Tripodis told Channel 2. “Maybe it was a letter of apology. Maybe it was a check. Maybe they’re going to justly compensate me. I opened it up and realized that they were suing me.”  the city of Atlanta is now suing the owner of the property and threatening to foreclose on the empty land unless he covers the cost of the demolition, $68,000.! 

“After you air the story, after everyone sees it, instead of them fixing the problem, they double down and do it again,” the man added. “It’s like after the slap comes the spit in my face. I’m just frustrated.” the city is alleging that “the property should be sold unless one or more of the interested parties tenders the full redemption amount,” which consists of the original demolition costs plus interest, which totals over $68,000, Everett Tripodis himself had already sued the city for the wrongful demolition of his property, but his case is stuck in the Fulton Court system, and he only has weeks to respond to the foreclosure suit, it amazes me how city officials can be so callous, after obviously making a mistake they still pursue the house holder and his mother, and there was me thinking city officials were elected to help their constituents!