City officials posted signs at the Gables of Inwood Apartments near Antoine Forest yesterday notifying residents that they need to vacate the property by Monday. The owner of the 165-unit complex, Collins Ofoegbu of El Sobrante, California, has received notices of more than 240 violations from city inspectors since purchasing the property in 2006.
Some received the news from orange “notice to vacate” signs affixed to their doors. The signs also warned residents that power would be disconnected Monday.
“I need, like, two or three months,” said an agitated Jolanda Hernandez, who waved a recent rent receipt while complaining in Spanish. “I need time so I can move out of here.”
Matt Stiles’s report in the Chronicle indicates there are also problems at a closer-in property with a much larger group of owners: the Park Memorial Condominiums near the corner of Memorial and Detering. Stiles says city inspectors planned to post notices at the condominiums at 5292 Memorial warning residents that the parking garage is unsafe and “may experience catastrophic failure at any time.”
After the jump: More highlights from reporter Matt Stiles’s personal collection of dangerous-apartment photos!
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- City closes run-down NW Houston apartment complex [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston apartments: City closes another property [Houston Politics]
Photos of Gables of Inwood Apartments, 5600 Holly View Dr.: Matt Stiles
Good news!
These and many other apartments in this area ruined Inwood Forest.
I was lucky enough to sell my condo at Park Memorial a while back as the structural problems there were mounting. Definitely some real issues with steel beams in the garage areas under the buildings.
The property is currently on the commercial market if memory serves. I feel very badly for the many owners still there.
I’m sorry, but “Collins Ofoegbu” sounds like one of those spam email names you get in your Junk folder all the time…
K, this is Collins Ofoegbu! I have moneymaking opportunity for you! Work at home! Make $$$$ each week! :D
Hee! Looks like Collins has other problems at hand besides being a slumlord:
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=32618
…and is also apparently styled a “chief” of some Nigerian tribe. Looks like he ran for some kind of public office there as recently as 2005, despite being a U.S. resident.
http://nigerianmasses.com/political_details.asp?id=123&stateid=Imo
Weird, weird stuff.
I can’t imagine someone from Nigeria ever being a con man.
/sc off
Don’t feel too bad for the Park Memorial residents. The land under their units is so valuable that brokers are telling them that a land sale to a developer will bring them all a substantial premium over the market value of the units sold to residential users. How do you think they enticed 95% of the condo owners to sell out?
It’s not like they have to move out of their condos just yet. The parking garage is the issue, not the residences. They already have a deal worked out to park in the office building across the street. Their temporary inconvenience will be followed by a nice tax free payday.
Bernard, like Brad I used to live there (sold in 2005 thank god) and the problem is that 80% of the parking is directly UNDER units. So if the parking is in danger of collapsing there are some people that live right above the garage that may be a bit incoveniened if their homes go crashing through the floor. Its really too bad becuase it was a great place to live and the location is fantastic.
The inwood area was ruined when they put the bus route through up Antoine years ago. That brought all of the dregs of society into an otherwise nice suburban area. Pretty much every one of those apartments along the Antoine corridor are full of criminal behavior.
I have a friend of mine who sold his condom down the street from me at Park Memorial also in 2005. It took him a while, but it sold. I’m sure he knew as well. That’s prime land and worth a bundle. Accomplishing the task of getting nearly 100% of any property owners association to agree on anything is extremely uncommon. That just tells you how slam dunk the concept of selling the land is and how precarious the problem is with the construction. You just gotta love those high quality developers of multi-family projects.
I’m still on a Yahoo group for PM owners. It is very sad seeing the chaos they are going through right now trying to get the sale passed before the city tags the property as uninhabitable. The HOA president is out of the country on business, there are still 3 sale holdouts (my mind boggles), the list goes on. I’m so glad I got away from there.
I just found this website and am shocked that whoever is posting this is quoting from private e-mails from our HOA board. Who is running this website? Also, for the person who last year said “Don’t feel too bad for the Park Memorial Homeowners”, I have a condo that you can buy from me. We can’t live in the community, the complex has been shut down since November and the gates are chained shut. We still have to pay our mortages and HOA fees, for lawyers, and our property taxes. On top of that we have to pay for a new place to live. We have 15 people who will not sign the papers to complete the sale and so we sit and wait and pay for a home that we can never live in again. Oh and by the way if you haven’t noticed the market has tanked too. Bernard, please don’t comment on things that you know nothing about.
Mr. Ofoegbu is a peice of shit. Anything that breaks in his property he takes forever to fix. I have been living in one of his rental properties for almost three years… He makes promises to fix shit and never does…
Park Memorial is now an abandonded mess, full of garbage, and has only God knows how many vagrants squatting the property. Does anyone know what the city’s plans are?