Josie Trujillo at the window of her house in Cragmor. The swimming pool, once filled with mud, cattails, weeds and trees, now only holds a little dirty water from the winter.

Josie Trujillo is no slumlord who accumulates properties for rent and neglects them. 

She is not like some who simply are content to let her property sit and rot and the neighbors be damned. 

Josie is someone whose life spun out of control and her house in Cragmor suffered. Along with her neighbors. 

But now, 12 years later, the house is improving even if Josie is still struggling. 

Here’s how it appeared in the July 18, 2002, edition of The Gazette when it was featured in the first Side Streets and came to symbolize blight in Colorado Springs. 

Here’s how the house looks today. 

Neighbors are much happier to see a freshly painted house with new windows and neat landscaping. 

Josie Trujillo's house as it appeared April 27, 2011.

I’m glad to be able to report the progress Josie has made on the house. 

But her story is so sad and she has a long way to go before she’s able to live in the place again. 

Her first goal is to complete the exterior. 

The eaves along the back and over a small rear deck still must be repaired. 

Then she can pull permits from the city and start concentrating on the interior. 

It will be a huge chore. 

The inside is bare studs and plywood. She has insulation in about half the house. But the amount of work needed is staggering. 

Electrical wiring. Plumbing. A furnace. Water heater. 

Her needs are great. 

But she’s determined to get it done, even if it takes many more years. 

The repairs Josie Trujillo has made on her house can be seen. She is working her way around the place. Only a small deck on the rear, remains to be fixed before the exterior is finished.

Here's a closer look at the deck. A new sliding glass door has been installed. Next, the eaves, ceiling and siding will be replaced.

xxx 

Josie Trujillo walks through the remains of her living room.

Her house was featured in the first Side Streets on July 18, 2002, along with the Joseph O’Brien house on the west side, which has been condemned since 1973.

Neighbor frustration with similarly blighted houses led the Colorado Springs Code Enforcement office to campaign for an ordinance to combat blight.

The O’Brien house became “exhibit A” for neglect when the City Council adopted a blight ordinance in 2006. Josie’s neighbors also testified on behalf of the ordinance.

Here’s a look at that very first Side Streets on July 18, 2002:

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JOSIE TRUJILLO’S HOUSE NO LONGER SYMBOLIZES BLIGHT is a post from: Side Streets

These chickens, Moto, Nugget and Snowball, were pets raised by 11-year-old Dalton Holm and his mother, Stacey Stallwood, behind their Cheyenne Canon home.

Dalton raised them from chicks. We’re talking heat lamps, medicated chick feed and constant care until they grew feathers and could survive outdoors.

To protect them outdoors, Stacey paid her brother to build a sweet coop, fully insulated, shingled and painted, for the trio of chicks.

On Monday, they believe someone entered their fenced chicken coop and killed the hens, breaking their necks, stomping on them and even decapitating one.

The coop was fenced on all sides and even above to protect the hends.

And because the hens were not taken or eaten — only abused — the family and neighbors believe their deaths were an act of criminal mischief.

Neighbors like Leona Breaker said the children in the neighborhood are horrified by the killing.

Dalton said the hens were pets who taught him to love animals, take responsibility for their care and even how to start a business . . . he sold their eggs around the neighborhood.

Besisdes his hens, Dalton likes horses. And he likes riding motorcycles and garden tractors.

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Here’s a video of Dalton talking about the hens taken Tuesday by KRDO News Channel 13.

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CHICKENS SLAUGHTERED IN COOP A SAD LESSON TO KIDS is a post from: Side Streets

It’s not often that businesses line up to take shots at one of their neighbors.

 There’s usually a comradery among businesses. They work together to advertise and attract customers or to fight issues of mutual concern. Remember how Westside businesses rallied to take on the homeless issue in Colorado Springs last winter?

 Neighboring businesses on South Tejon Street are rallying, too. Against one of their own. SoDo nightclub.

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The SoDo nightclub sits across the street from Southside Johnny's at South Tejon Street and East Moreno Avenue in this 2006 file photo by The Gazette's Kevin Kreck.

Owners of a couple bars, a coffee shop, bank, motel, computer technology business and law firm are fighting SoDo, an 18-and-older hip-hoppy dance club at the corner of Tejon and Moreno Avenue.

This isn’t a place where everybody knows your name. But they might know your bra size. Here’s a look at its web site.

SoDo is a more than just a dance joint, although check out the go-go dancer from a photo on its website.

Besides the barely dressed girls, there is loud music and DJs and body painting and  loud music and booty shaking contests and loud music and, well, you get the picture.

A $10 cover charge gains entry to all the fun.

But neighbors say it’s not much fun for them after midnight most weekends.

They describe an ugly mix of alcohol-fueled, testosterone-charged men brawling regularly.

Young people urinate freely in the streets, alleys and parking lots around the club, witnesses say. Vomiting patrons are a common sight, they say.

Perhaps most troublesome, gunfire is regularly heard, neighbors say.

That’s why a dozen or so businesses lined up at Liquor and Beer Licensing Board on July 15 to oppose SoDo’s request to install a rooftop beer garden. Here’s a look at the neighborhood from FlashEarth.com.

Neighbors say SoDo’s is bad enough already. They can’t imagine how bad it would get if the club’s mayhem was raining down from the rooftop.

SoDo owner Tim Rose of Summit Commercial Group declined to talk to me about his club. Neighbors say he is similarly unresponsive to complaints they lodge about violence, trash, noise and the rest.

These are not prudish neighbors. They already tolerate an X-rated movie house and bookstore, New Eros, in the block. (In the age of streaming, high-definition Internet porn, it’s amazing anyone still needs a peep house. But that’s another column.)

And neighbors insist this isn’t about competition between bar owners. Johnny Nolan, owner of Southside Johnny’s, said he doesn’t compete for customers with SoDo’s 18-and-up dance crowd. It’s a much different demographic.

Although the neighbors convinced the liquor board to reject the rooftop beer garden, the fight is not over. SoDo has sued to overturn the decision claiming the board exceeded its jurisdiction, abused its discretion and acted in an aribtrary and capricious manner.

While we wait for the case to surface in court, how about a couple body shots! And shake that booty!

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TEJON STREET NEIGHBORS OK WITH BARS, PEEP SHOW BUT NOT SODO is a post from: Side Streets

Fred Van Antwerp wants to walk his neighborhood in peace and out of the way of traffic.

In the Broadmoor area of Colorado Springs where he lives, that’s a trick because there are no sidewalks and few curbs and gutters.

Fred Van Antwerp stands on the spot where his property ends and the city's 9-foot public right-of-way begins outside his Broadmoor neighborhood home.

So Fred walks on the grass along the streets. Lots of people in his neighborhood do the same thing.

In many places, as on Oak Avenue in the photo above, folks respect the public 9-foot right-of-way that runs along every street in Colorado Springs. Their landscaping and fences set back from the road.

But more and more homeowners are laying claim to the right-of-way, Fred says.

It’s getting hard to stay out of the street because he encounters so many fences, or large boulders or hysterical homeowners all intent on shooing him off “their” property.

Some even erect walls and thick shrubs to keep people off the right-of-way.

Often, the landscaping looks very nice. But is it legal for homeowners to take control of the right-of-way?

No, says Ken Lewis, city code enforcement administrator.

He said the adjacent property owners are responsible for maintaining the adjacent right-of-way in what the city code calls an “aesthetically pleasing” manner. But they don’t own it and can’t keep people off it.

Some even try to control the street in front of their homes. They put up fences to discourage walkers from straying on the grass and motorists from parking on the streets.

Nice try. But definitely not legal.

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THE GRASS IS ALWAYS MEANER ON THE CITY RIGHT-OF-WAY is a post from: Side Streets

Judith Kay is taking her miniature horses, Peanut and Sprout, and leaving Ron Court.

And, probably, Colorado Springs, as well.

Below are photos of the three:

The City Council ruled last week that there just isn’t room at her small home and yard on Ron Court for the miniature horses.

A couple neighbors complained the smell of hay and horses was causing them health problems with allergies. And they feared the horses would hurt their property values.

It didn’t matter that Kay uses the horses as part of her 25-year-long tutoring program to help troubled and learning-disabled children.

See my previous Side Streets column and previous blog for more detail on the issue.

                                        Below is a view of Ron Court, located just west of Circle Drive in the Knob Hill neighborhood north of Platte Avenue.

Peanut and Sprout are moving to MM Equestrian Center on Squirrel Road, east of Fountain.

Here is a look at the center from its Web site:

It will be their home until Kay can sell her place and move to a place that will allow her to reunite with her beloved horses. She hopes to avoid a possible $500 fine and 90-day jail sentence for violating city codes for keeping hoofed animals in the city.

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HAPPY TRAILS, PEANUT, SPROUT AND JUDITH is a post from: Side Streets