A Prime Corner Lot in the King Neighborhood Houses Rats and Raccoons

ADDRESS: 306 NE Going St.

YEAR BUILT: 1911

SQUARE FOOTAGE: 1,482

MARKET VALUE: $465,930

OWNER: Patricia Giroux

HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: 15 years

WHY IT’S EMPTY: Unclear

Ariel Werbicki moved to Portland five years ago, in part because she got priced out of Colorado and thought the Rose City might be a place she and her partner could afford to buy a home.

It’s an unkind irony, then, that Werbicki, who is still renting, lives right next door to a home that has stood vacant since 2008.

Werbicki, 35, says it’s both perplexing and frustrating to see the adjacent home at 306 NE Going St. occupied by only rats, raccoons and the occasional squatter.

“It’s a beautiful corner lot right on a bike lane,” she says. “You can walk to everything from here: the dog park, coffee, shopping…it’s got everything.”

Everything except a tenant. Jeff Gersh, who owns the home Werbicki rents, says the Going Street house has been empty since 2008, when he bought the property next door.

Records show that Patricia Giroux, a Portland resident, purchased the now-vacant property in July 2008 for $100,000. The first of five nuisance complaints to the city about the property came in 2009, records show, and continued right up until the end of last year, when inspectors forced Giroux to deal with a chimney that was peeling away from the south side of the house. (A pile of bricks on the ground and some new wooden shingles where the upper part of the chimney used to touch the house show subsequent repair work.)

Gersh says he’s had sporadic contact with Giroux over the years, mostly to alert her to problems. He once asked her if she’d like to sell, as did one of his former tenants, but those entreaties went nowhere.

“When she bought it, it was a sweet little house,” Gersh recalls. “Now, I don’t think you could save it. Probably a job for a bulldozer.”

In the meantime, Giroux, who didn’t respond to phone and text messages, pays the minuscule property taxes on the house—$1,357 last year—and, presumably, waits for developments more positive than a collapsing chimney.

“It’s a sad story,” Gersh says, “and it’s unnecessary.”

Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.