Deltona mom faces domestic dilemma

BEACON PHOTO/AL EVERSON
No treats in this house — Holding her 2-year-old son, Marrie Kate Sallade stands in front of the refrigerator she had to move into her living room, because she has virtually no electricity in her kitchen. Sallade has applied for government help to rehabilitate her house, but the aid may not cover the cost of all of the major problems.

By Al Everson
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Oct 19, 2009 - 10:21:52am

For Marrie Kate Sallade, her house in Deltona is scarier than Halloween.

Sallade's home is a house of horrors, a compounded set of woes she bought last year.

"I purchased this home in the first place for $60,000. It would cost me $60,000 to put the house in order," she said.

Sallade has qualified to receive a $25,000 grant from the State Housing Initiative Partnership (SHIP), but the grant falls short of the full costs of making the house livable.

"I can get the SHIP grant," she said. "But the SHIP grant is not going to help much, because I don't have the other $25,000 to fix the house."

A single mother, Sallade purchased the home on Weybridge Street in June 2008, after it had gone into foreclosure. Two or three months after she moved in, one problem after another bedeviled her, Sallade said, even though the home had been inspected.

"September 2008 is when things started going wrong," she recalled. "I had inspections done. I had an electrician and a plumber go through. ... The problems were concealed enough so you would have to take out the wall and see the problems."

The electrical defects are such she and her 2-year-old son, Elijah, have had to live with no air-conditioning or heat for more than a year.

"It hurts me so much when we sit down to dinner, and he's pouring sweat," Sallade said.

What needs to be done?

"They would replumb the entire home. They would rewire the entire home. They would put in AC," Sallade said. "We cannot even use space heaters because of electrical problems."

In addition, the house needs a new roof, and there are mold problems that threaten Elijah's health.

The mold grew after water pipes burst twice and flooded the house.

"Four inches of water" covered the floors of almost every room, Sallade said.

As if that was not enough, the house's electrical system began to fail.

"The way the add-on is spliced into the wiring and the plumbing, it could overload the wiring," she said. "Nothing works in the kitchen. My refrigerator has been moved out to my living room."

The original home, built in the 1960s, needs new windows.

"Literally, my front windows cannot be closed," she said, as she described how her home had been burglarized twice. "That's how the robbers got in."

The first break-in was in June, and Sallade said the thief or thieves stole some $3,000 worth of property, including electronic items such as a PlayStation and DVDs, along with a small amount of cash.

"They stole my son's savings," she said.

Another burglary occurred in September.

"I got robbed again. They stole my laptop," Sallade said.

With Tropical Storm Fay's heavy rains in August 2008 also came some leaks into the addition.

The previous owners had added the extra 250 square feet, which serves as a family room and dining area. That portion of the home was fraught with enough problems by itself, Sallade went on, as it had been done with a city-issued building permit that had expired.

"The owners got caught and got cited for it," she said. "The contractor died before the final inspection. The people finished the add-on. Shortly after the room was finished, it went into foreclosure. I bought it on the foreclosure market."

Sallade said city officials had once told her she would probably have to tear down the addition, before she would be eligible for the SHIP grant. Later, however, she learned the building violation had been put on hold.

Asked if Sallade is facing any code-enforcement penalties because of the previous owners' possible violation of a city building ordinance, Deltona Enforcement Services Director Dale Baker said "there are no open cases" at her address.

Deltona Community Development Director Chris Bowley said he and others are working to help Sallade.

"She can have SHIP monies applied to the home," Bowley added. "SHIP requires that all unpermitted problems be addressed first."

Aid options are currently limited, he explained. The city received about $6 million in federal funds — under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program — to combat the foreclosure crisis, but those dollars may not be used to assist homeowners living in defective dwellings.

"I pay my mortgage. I don't want to lose my house," Sallade said.

For the house to qualify for Neighborhood Stabilization aid, however, Sallade would have to lose her home and the city would have to buy it out of foreclosure, then make the repairs and upgrades to sell it anew.

Sallade said she works hard to keep a home for herself and her son. Following the breakup of a marriage she said involved domestic violence, Sallade enrolled in classes at Florida Institute of Technology's branch campus in Orlando.

She is working on a master's degree in psychology, specializing in autism and developmental disabilities in children. She is getting some practical experience in the field, by working with autistic children at a home for autistic children in Eustis.

If there is a good side of the lack of comfort and convenience in her home, Sallade has found it.

"My power bills went down," she said.

She holds out hope some more good will yet come her way.

— al@beacononlinenews.com

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