Water fills abandoned home near Mike Duggan's childhood house | FOX 2 Detroit

Water fills abandoned home near Mike Duggan's childhood house

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Water is flowing through a vacant home on Detroit's east side and neighbors say it's been happening for months but the city hasn't done anything about their calls to get the water shut off.

The water is spewing from a pipe in the filthy basement of an abandoned home that sits on a forgotten block in Detroit that's becoming a dumping ground. But for the few people who still live there, they want to do what they can to turn the neighborhood around. To them, this feels like a lesson in futility.

Michael Henry Carrington has lived a block away on Stansbury for almost 50 years. It's just two doors down from Mayor Mike Duggan's childhood home. He had high hopes the neighborhood might make a comeback with Duggan's help but says that's just a broken promise now.

"This was a nice neighborhood, this was the neighborhood Mike Duggan grew up in," Carrington said. "He had his campaign thing. He said he was going to start in this neighborhood and clean up. Mike, I'm waiting. I'm waiting, Mike."

The home filling with the water is at 15397 Lesure Drive. It's barely standing and was scheduled for demolition years ago. A crew showed up and told Carrington it was coming down. They got started but that was about it.

"This was in May of 2015 and he said it would be demolished by the end of June," Carrington said. "They stripped all the walls, the ceilings, everything and just threw it right here. If someone threw a match on this, the whole block might go."

The demo didn't happen due to legal issues but the city says it is on the demolition list - there's just no date.

Carrington said the water in the basement has been running for at least a year and maybe longer. He and almost everyone else on the block have called in to the city but nothing has happened.

"I called the water department, she called, he's called, my neighbor used the app, he's one of these app people, he punched it in," Carrington said.  "I reported it. Here we are the end of August almost two years later and water's still running."

The Department of Water and Sewerage says the water was shut off on the home in 2013 but that's clearly not the case. DWS says investigators are supposed to be out to check out what's causing the water to run.

The department recently built a new security team of former Detroit police officers to investigate water theft.

Carrington says just turning off the water would be a great start.

UPDATE: An official with the water department says the way was shut off on Wednesday at the home on Lesure