Cary sues landlord to demolish 3 buildings

Cary officials are suing a local landlord to force the demolition of three downtown apartment buildings they say are infested with mold, inviting to rodents and unsafe for humans to call home.

In a lawsuit filed this week against building owner Telis Pappas, the village asks a judge to order him to demolish the buildings at 362, 374 and 404 Crystal St. or allow the village to do it and then seek reimbursement from the owner.

The litigation comes about six weeks after village inspectors toured the former houses that have been converted into apartments. Inside they found mold, rotting wood, broken windows, inoperable plumbing, exposed wiring and a host of other health and safety problems, according to inspection reports.

"We went in there to look at them and they were in really bad shape," said Robert Nowak, Cary's director of building, planning and zoning. "If he's going to provide residential dwelling, he has to keep up the property."

On Tuesday Pappas called the lawsuit a waste of everybody's money, saying he is in the process of removing his tenants and hiring contractors to level the buildings. Village officials, he said, have been kept apprised of his efforts in recent weeks and earlier this year agreed to re-zone the property so he could replace the apartments with a strip mall.

"I'm working on it," he said. "Two of them are empty and the other one will be soon. Then I'll demolish them.

"These things don't happen overnight," Pappas added. "I told them just to give me some time."

Nowak, however, said Pappas has been promising to demolish the buildings for about a year -- without much follow through.

"We want him to move on his commitment," he said.