***may 2024 update***

Ugh. So this is the latest:

the house burned horribly in October 2023.  No people inside- heard at least one dog/puppy missing.  Horrific that these people are even allowed to have pets considering past history of criminal charges for animal abuse.

That’s said, even though the fire was massive (burned for two days, required multiple departments’ response) and even though we reported the unsafe/violation immediately, the county waited FOUR months to take any activity to try to correct the NEW code violations.

there was finally an unsafe building hearing April 2024 month, and this is what was decided:

 1) Tommy agreed that the primary residence is unsafe.

 2) Tommy agreed that the property is in violation of county codes.

3) Tommy agreed that the county already came in and cleaned up once, costing 35K-37K in taxpayer money to clean up. (That happened in 2021, still never paid the county lien back.  People should be more upset about this, no?  That’s a huge amount of money)

 4) Tommy agreed that if he is to receive a building permit, he HAS and will put $20K bond up

5) Based on 1-4, the Hearing Officer will issue an order for the demolition. This is essentially un-appealable, because tommy agreed to 1-4, and agreed to the hearing officer issuing an order for demolition

6) That said, even though the order for demolition IS BEING ISSUED, the demolition order will be stayed by agreement between the county and Tommy until May 22, 2024, so that Tommy can a) clean the property and b) "safe" the building in, and work with the building inspector to get a permit to rebuild. This must be done BEFORE the next unsafe building hearing, which is on May 22, 2024 at 1:30 p.m. He must clean up property (yard) and bring to compliance and he must safe in the property and work with building inspector before any permit will be issued. He has until May 22nd, which is next unsafe building hearing at this point. However, if he hasn’t complied by May 22nd, that doesn’t mean the Hearing officer will move forward with demolition. Mr. Hano may get additional time, however, he will not be able to move forward with a building permit if he will not be able to move forward with a building permit if he doesn’t comply with these steps first. Exactly how long the hearing officer will give I am unsure, but the process will not move forward until these steps are complete.

7a) Assuming there is a clean up, the building permit will be issued ONCE TOMMY puts up bond, and will be tightly monitored for compliance, otherwise County can come in and use the 20K bond clean up. Even with the bond, because we are a unit of government, we must still go through the bid/proposal process and award of contract process.

7b) if he does not comply, demolition will occur

This is good. BUT, not great, because he has basically flouted county rules for 12 years.

Contact the county commissioners and county code violation enforcement officer.

Code enforcement: Becky.j.harper@porterco.org

Commissioners are: Jim Biggs, Jim.Biggs@porterco.org
; Laura Blaney, Laura.Blaney@porterco.org
; and Barb Regnitz, Barb.Regnitz@porterco.org
 and complain every time you see a property or code violation. All the neighbors would be thrilled to have more voices pushing to clean that trash pit…

* original post and past updated below*

We live next door to “that” house- the disaster on the east side of 250 W, which everyone passes on their way to Aberdeen, Sylvan Manor, and Sagamore.   We apparently still need Porter County’s attention.

Not shockingly, the house structure caught fire in October 2023, and it is now without utilities.  The fire took multiple departments to get the fire out- lots of first responders risking their lives for something that really, really was kinda expected.  Horrific.

We continue to watch in horror as the property remains actual dumpsite and fire debris site.

It wasn't like when we moved here. In fact, the property had different owners and it was beautiful. We are heartbroken that this is happening, that our property values are probably exponentially lower because of this, and that we have to be embarrassed each time we meet new people and have to say, "Yeah, we live by that house." 

We are still trying to figure out what to do and have notified the county and IDEM already. (We've been sending emails/filing complaints with the code enforcement since 2012).

At this present point, our concerns include almost everything that the Porter County code enforcement webpage lists as "examples" of potential code violations:

• A fresh collection of yard debris, vehicles, garbage;
• Multiple broken pieces of equipment, likey leaking oil and/or other materials, which will permeate the ground and cause ground water/well contamination;
• unsafe buildings;
• The broken "privacy" fence, that was put in “new” after the last county clean up.  
• We’ve also repeatedly notified the Porter County commissioners.  

Three times, the county acted.  Once the owner was charged with animal abuse.  But he’s now allowed pets on the property, again.  Then, in 2019, the county did charge him with code violations, which were filed in Judge Bradford's Superior Court, but after getting a court order, Porter County lost interest in enforcing the order, and let it grow so much worse.  In 2021, the county got an order and part of the property was cleaned…but it started getting worse again, and even though we reported it repeatedly, again we now have another mess.

I continue to be concerned about the health of my family and mortified that this has continued go on this long.

In January of 2024, the county again promised they would take some action, but again, it would “take time.” There might be a code enforcement process started….

Since then, though, Jim Biggs has refused to apprise me of the status, has refused to provide a timeline for when it would happen, and has refused to provide any detail regarding what the county might do.

I’m also still perplexed regarding the processes at the county level- how to make public record of this issue, other than the online complaints, and for to the appropriate way for placing this on the agenda for the meeting of the board of commissioners, so we could be involved in all meetings being held by the Department of Development and Stormwater Management, which appears to be the department that handles Code Enforcement.  It seems like there should be ongoing code violations and enforcement,  but….

if you want, email me at:

cleanup143n250w@gmail.com