SEVEN RESIDENTS at 77 Pleasant St. were evicted by the town of Brunswick in Januar y. After nearly two years of attempted repairs to a rotting porch in front of the building, town officials decided to condemn the property.
In January, Brunswick Codes Enforcement Officer Jeff Hutchinson evicted Bartz and six other residents of 77 Pleasant St. because a rotting porch left the building with only one of two reliable exits required for the building.
At the time, Hutchinson said that residents would be able to keep their possessions in the building if they wished.
But the building is now out of the town’s control.
“The town of Brunswick has no access to the building any longer,” Hutchinson said Wednesday.
Following two break-ins to steal copper piping and property that belonged to two other residents — Joe and Jackie Toth — just one day after the Jan. 18 eviction, Brunswick police stepped up patrols of the building.
At the time of the breakins, Capt. Mark Waltz of the Brunswick Police Department said the situation was “difficult because no one has claimed responsibility for the building.”
Soon after, Hutchinson said, the Florida-based mortgage lender Bayview Properties took ownership of the building and hired a management firm to secure the property.
The building’s previous owner, Michael Gaul, was incommunicado with town officials and tenants and had stopped collecting rent following a divorce settlement that put the property back in his hands. According to Linda Norden of the Portland-based property management firm Aquarius Property Management, her firm had taken over the building on a court order during the divorce proceedings.
“The divorce was finalized in May (2011) and, as a result, ( Gaul) was awarded the Brunswick property,” Norden said.
When Norden’s company first received the property from Gaul, it was on the verge of foreclosure, she said.
“When we received all of the paperwork, that took us months to compile,” Norden said. “It was just a mess.”
Gaul did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Times Record.
In the confusing web of ownership and responsibility that followed the building’s condemnation, the 47-year-old Bartz said he’s been unable to find answers as to who can get him into the building.
Hutchinson said Wednesday that one or two of the former tenants contacted him regarding entry to the building, and he gave them contact information for the property preservation company Lockdown, which was hired to secure the building.
Lockdown owner Craig Nichols referred questions Wednesday to the property management firm that hired him, M& M Mortgage Services, which is based in Miami, Fla.
A representative at M&M said that permission to enter the building would need to be granted by the mortgage lender, Bayview Loan Servicing, based in Coral Gables, Fla.
Cory Bowman, co-founder of the Bangor-based property management company CDN Enterprises, said in January that he had spoken with the former owner, Gaul, about buying the building and was told that he could expect to hear from the bank.
On Wednesday, Bowman said he had yet to hear anything back from Bayview about a sale of the property.
A call to Bayview seeking comment Wednesday was not returned.
Bartz said that a representative at Bayview previously directed him to Brunswick police. As with the codes enforcement office, Bartz said, the police department said it was out of their hands.
“I really don’t want to ruffle feathers,” Bartz said, “but out of all of the people who are involved in this, you’re going to tell me that there’s not one person who has a clue?”
Bartz said he was able to take his cats and a week’s worth of clothing from the building before it was locked, but had focused on finding a place to move in the wake of the eviction.
“I was under the assumption that I could come back and get my stuff at a later date,” Bartz said.
At the time, Hutchinson said that the town’s main concern was that residents find another place to live.
“Ultimately, our concern is that (the residents) are out,” Hutchinson said. “We’re not asking that they have all of their belongings out, they just need to stop living there.”
From a relative’s home in Richmond nearly two months after the eviction, Bartz said he’s still waiting for answers.
“We’re talking about my life being locked up in a building that I can’t get into unless I want to get arrested,” Bartz said. “That’s 25 years of my life in there. It’s all I want — a very simple thing.”
dfishell@timesrecord.com
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