Nina Smith and the City of Lakewood appeared to be a match made in heaven.
With its streets lined with century-old houses, the West Side suburb is all about encouraging folks to restore homes to their original charm. Smith, too, is all about restoring the 1914-model abode she bought in 2008 partly because of the city’s commitment to maintaining residential character.
But that was three years ago, and things change.
An IT specialist by day, Smith is also a member of the Lakewood Historical Society and the Cleveland Restoration Society, a graduate of many restoration workshops and seminars, and a Lakewood auxiliary police officer to boot. She’s not short on love for restoring her home. She’s just short on time, what with all the city inspections and court visits.
In April 2009, Smith set out on her quest to return the home to its original splendor. Taking her cues from suggestions prominently offered on Lakewood’s website, she single-handedly started tearing chalky sheets of 1970s aluminum off the house and restoring original cedar shaking on its front. That’s when the trouble started.
This article appears in Oct 12-18, 2011.
Some neighbors like to judge their neighbors and make life in some suburbs a pain to live in. The inspectors, perhaps out of a need to feel on top of things, can get somewhat absurd. In a world of so many things a person has to do to survive, you would think we could focus on more meaningful problems.
Thats Lakewood for ya….Full of snooty Solon wannabe’s and a city government that is TOTALLY useless…SO glad I moved…
There are several homes in Lakewood that need paint or repair and it doesn’t seem the owners are doing much to change that. This woman is trying to bring this house back to it former beauty therefore improving the whole area. They should give her a reasonable time line based on what needs to be done & let her do it.
solon. heh. do they have running water out there in the sticks?
In the end of Sept 2010 we had an inspector come out to our home after two weeks of rain and the grass growing we got a notice, we obviously cut once it stopped raining, when they came back out to make sure the grass had been cut they decided to say we needed to paint our front porch (we had painted two years prior) here it is now the beginning of October and the city has giving us one month to paint the front porch, I contacted the inspector and explained that we had it budgeted for the end of the summer 2011 after the month passed we received another notice( the inspector ignored my letter stating when the painting would be completed) this one saying we had to come in and meet with a prosecutor, I wrote another letter to both the inspector and the prosecutor that I couldn’t afford to take time off work to meet with them and since I had already notified the inspector that I was aware the porch needed painting and it was planned for the summer 2011 I didn’t understand the need for the appoint and so I would not be appearing. still dealing with this crap today
I’d still take Lakewood and all it’s BS over Cleveland any day. Lakewood is a class act compared to City Hall and especially the Water Department. Asked them to help me pinpoint a leak in the waterline to my garage so I wouldn’t have to tear up a fairly-new cement driveway. They said that once they found it I had TEN DAYS to get it fixed or ALL my water would be shut off…I couldn’t believe it. Solved the problem by shutting off the waterline. Hey, it’s almost winter. I can wait until next spring or summer to get it fixed. Cleveland’s policy is “don’t ask…don’t tell.” Screw ’em. Lakewood can’t be worse than the crap Cleveland makes its residents eat. And don’t get me started about garbage pickup, snow removal, sewers, and leaf collection. You folks don’t know how well off you are, so kwitcherbitchin.
This is what an out-of-control government does. This woman’s personal property rights have been violated — and is anyone complaining about her house? The next dooor neighbor isn’t. Here’s a suggestion – reduce your taxes and spending in Lakewood – get rid of these city jobs and their bloated pensions.
How sad is i that this is what they ( the city) wold rather spend their money on. She is doing some good and they are turning it into and ugly situation. Be happy someone is doing work to their house, in other areas most let them go and you board up the windows. go spend your money there if you have so much extra.
What a surprise, the Lakewood government is (a) giving inconsistent information to its constituents and (b) being unreasonable.
Did anyone honestly expect anything different?
Wouldn’t all this effort be better directed at the Section 8 homeowners who seem to dot the city with increasing frequency,and the ever-increasing criminal behavior which seems to have coincidentally become a growing problem? At least this lady is making an effort to beautify her property. Lakewood has a lot bigger issues to deal with than harassing homeowner-occupants trying to follow the law.
To give a new attractive look to our home, we should pick some important points from different sources. Most probably through renovation, remodeling, and restoring we are able to give a perfect and attractive look to our old home. Apart from that, whenever it require, we move to a new home there also, we need some essential tips on remodeling or restoring our house. Thanks for this wonderful overview.
https://wearemovers.net/