Code Enforcement Officials Give Residents In Languishing 5-Unit Condo Building The Boot; Serious Unattended Health & Safety Issues Make Premises Unfit For Human Occupancy, Results In Utilities Shut-Off

In Woonsocket, Rhode Island, the Providence Journal reports:

• Residents of a five-unit apartment building converted into condominiums during the housing boom and then left to languish after the market’s collapse are facing orders to move out by [] or face eviction.
  
  The residents, including families with children, received letters earlier this week notifying them they would have to leave after inspectors — responding to reports earlier in the week of burst water pipes — discovered numerous violations at 736-740 Social St., according to a Feb. 16 letter to tenants from Armand E. Benette, the city’s senior housing inspector.
  
  One second-floor bathroom still has no water, the letter states, and a kitchen sink drain was "badly leaking." Inspectors also found "serious sanitation issues" in the building’s common areas, including bags of trash in the halls, broken door jambs, broken cellar windows and unregistered vehicles. Some violations, the letter states, dated back more than two years.
  
  Benette, the housing inspector, declared the property "unfit for human occupancy" and notified residents that the water, electricity and gas will be shut off []. The police will be on site, the letter said, to remove any remaining people from the premises.

For more, see Residents of five-unit building ordered out by Woonsocket officials.