Retired Seattle fire captain fights South Park neighbor from hell

When retired Seattle Fire captain Jeff Hayes was looking for a new home, he stumbled upon a charming, little-known Seattle neighborhood tucked between Boeing Field and Burien called South Park.

He found the perfect house for him and his two daughters.

“I have committed the cardinal real estate business sin in that I have actually fallen in love with my house, like it’s a member of my family,” Hayes said as we sat on the couch in his charming, 1917-era craftsman home in the working-class neighborhood.

Little did he know what he was getting into.

Hayes said that the woman who owned the house next door lived with her drug and alcohol-addled adult daughter, and a number of grandkids.

When that woman died, she left the house to her daughter. Then all hell broke loose.

A house in South Park

People came and went at all hours from the house next door.  It was clear to Hayes that there was drug dealing going on. Some brought obviously stolen goods.

There were junkies living there. Over the years they allegedly ran prostitutes out of the home and there was a pimp living there for a while.

And the woman’s teenagers and their friends ran amok, openly drinking and smoking pot.

It got so bad, some of the drug addicts even stripped the house of its copper piping, leaving it without running water.

“She instructed her kids to line the toilets with Hefty trash bags. And when the Hefty trash bags were full, then she would instruct her kids to pull the bag out of the toilet and take it out in the backyard,” Hayes said.

Since the woman had stopped paying the garbage bills, there was no collection. So the bags of human waste piled up along the fence, less than 20 feet from Hayes back deck.

On many days the stench so awful he couldn’t sit outside or open a window.

Jeff repeatedly called the city. And he called the police.

“I was continuously told by the community police team that if I saw issues over there that concerned me to call 911,” Hayes said. “So I would call 911, I would be treated disrespectfully by the 911 dispatcher. They would be dismissive and disrespectful of me on the phone.  Typically, I would not be able to get an officer to respond.”

Police have responded to the house several dozen times. But often hours after Hayes called. And they told him there’s nothing they can do unless they actually see a crime being committed.

“I even showed them pictures of guys wheeling obviously stolen stuff down the alley, then coming out all high without the stuff,” Hayes said.

And the nightmare continued to get worse in South Park. The woman’s estranged husband — Steven Blacktongue — got out of prison, allegedly bringing with him a slew of violent ex-cons — and even more crime.

It was terrifying for Jeff, his wife and daughters. He tried talking to them, but was met by hostility and blank stares or a big German Shepherd.

The woman claimed she was scared of her husband and her friends and couldn’t control her kids, but couldn’t do anything about it.

Then came the March morning this year when Jeff heard the news — Steven Blacktongue had gone to a nearby convenience stores early on a Sunday morning wielding a hatchet. He attacked a customer and clerk without saying a word. Another customer with a concealed weapons permit shot and killed him, likely saving the clerk’s life, police said.

With Blacktongue dead, things got even worse at the house.

Her teenagers and friends ran rampant — drinking and using drugs. And despite continued calls to 911, the city, and Child Protective Services nothing was done about the South Park neighbor.

“I don’t know if CPS even came out. I certainly never saw anyone,” Hayes said.

Other than some fines from the Department of Construction and Inspections, everyone says they can’t force the woman to cleanup or sell the house.

“I’m not asking for anyone to go over and above what they’re supposed to do. I’m just asking them to do what they’re supposed to do.  And I have found in situation after situation, they’re just not doing their jobs,” Hayes said.

The woman would not come to the door the day I visited South Park. But Hayes says she’s told him she’s trapped, living on disability, undergoing methadone treatment several times a week, unable to afford a car or other living expenses.

After three-and-a-half years, the city finally did take some action. Last week it sent a cleanup crew in with hazardous material suits to remove the human waste-filled trash bags that had piled up in the backyard.

The woman will be billed for it. But like the numerous other fines that have piled up, she’ll likely never pay.

And inside the house, nothing has changed.

“Unless they follow that up with some serious counseling and an offer of resources to (the woman) and the people that still live in that house, the situation is going to continue to repeat itself. It’s a cycle that’s been going on every since I’ve been living next door to this house,” Hayes said.

So why doesn’t he just move out of South Park?

“I refuse to let somebody push me out of my house,” he said.

So he’ll continue to complain, and fight to protect his beloved home and neighborhood. And he hopes his neighbor will either clean up, or find a more manageable living situation, for everyone’s sake.

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