By Scott Smith
Howard County health inspectors were back at Roger McConnell’s house Monday, two days after a court-imposed cleanup deadline for the South LaFountain Street property.
Accompanied by a police escort, county health officer James Vest was able to spend 15 minutes inspecting the interior of the old home, built, by McConnell’s estimate, in 1926.
Vest had no comment after leaving the house, but McConnell, who didn’t repeat the outbursts he’s shown on prior enforcement visits, was in an upbeat mood.
Inside the home, which McConnell opened to two visitors, worklights provided most of the illumination. Outside it was raining, and many of the home’s windows were covered by stacks of miscellaneous items.
Much of it was in boxes, but McConnell also keeps woodpiles, piles of old papers and who-knows-what-else tucked away in the long-untouched corners of the home.
He has avenues cleared through his piles, enabling him to move from room to room in the mildewy home.
The bathroom, unused for at least two years, has been repaired through the help of friends, according to a workman at the house who asked not to be identified.
“The main problem was that the pump wasn’t working. We had to get that working, and we had to replace some busted water pipes,” the man said. “Last winter it got cold, and all of the [unused pipes] just went ‘pop.’”
The next move will be up to the health department. A court order last month gave McConnell until Saturday to clean out the home, exterminate vermin, fix a large hole in the roof and have all the utilities working.
According to McConnell’s friend, the roof is fixed, and the plumbing is working.
And a tour of the home revealed none of the estimated 25 to 50 cats health inspectors said once lived inside the structure. Several cats prowled around the yard, but there was no smell of animal feces or urine.
McConnell, 61, is in seemingly desperate straits, between the court-ordered cleanup, a pending domestic battery charge and the fact he has to come up with around $25,000 to redeem his family homestead from tax sale.
Although McConnell had no heat in the home on a frigid, rainy Tuesday, there was no water visible coming through the roof.
One room was impassible, filled with rubbish, and the main room, where McConnell watches an old console television from an armchair so dirty its color is indistinguishable, is mostly filled with items as well.
McConnell has long maintained that most of the boxes contain a mixture of things he might be able to part with, and pieces of a model train set, which he wants to keep.
“I’ve got to go all the way through them and take out my train set,” he said, when asked what he plans to do with all of the “stuff” inside the home.
He said he’s getting ready to begin sorting the materials. The frustration for city and county inspectors is that while McConnell has made similar promises in the past, he never sets out any trash for removal.
Making matters worse, inspectors say, is the fact McConnell harbors grudges concerning items he feels were removed illegally in prior cleanups.
McConnell briefly alluded to those grudges. Many of them directly pertain to Lynn Rudolph, a former Kokomo police chief who has worked as a foreman at the city street department for several years.
McConnell’s friend said part of Roger’s apparent reluctance to throw away items is tied to survival. Each winter, McConnell burns items in his fireplace to heat the home. McConnell’s friend said McConnell is fearful of not having enough heating materials.
The house also has baseboard heaters, but turning them on is an impossibility, due to the accumulation of trash.
And as for the fact his house sold at tax sale, and he now has less than a year to redeem it, McConnell seemed unfazed.
“I think I can get the money together,” he said.
It may be possible to get a loan for the needed amount, particularly if the property is worth as much as some think it is. McConnell, who has 2.7 acres, said a neighbor a couple houses down was recently offered more than three times the tax sale redemption price for just over half an acre.
But the problem always comes back to McConnell’s apparent inability to care for the property.
It was cleaned up before, in 2005, yet four years later, the health department is trying to have the property condemned.
And now McConnell is without his girlfriend of seven years, Carol Knolinski. The two are separated by a court protective order after an Oct. 22 domestic incident. Both accused the other of instigating the incident, and both were arrested on a misdemeanor battery charge.
McConnell spent almost two weeks in jail before finally paying $800 to bond out.
Monday, he was back in his dim, cluttered house, his breath visible in the cold, trying to find a way to stay in the home where he grew up.
• Scott Smith is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He may be reached at 765-454-8569 or via e-mail at scott.smith@kokomotribune.com
