GREENFIELD — A Conway Street landlord has until Monday to make certain repairs to his house and the city plans to stop by that day for an inspection.
Douglas Sky Wight is embroiled with the city of Greenfield over his property at 237 Conway St., which has been cited for safety violations, and he was in Western Housing Court in Greenfield Friday in the latest chapter of his saga.
Greenfield Building Inspector Mark Snow sent Wight a cease-and-desist letter in October informing him the attic was not approved for living or sleeping and the two tenants living there could no longer do so. Another problem was that 10 people were residing in the structure, even though only four unrelated people can legally live in a single-family dwelling in the Urban Residential zoning district. The letter also reminded Wight of a similar issue in 2017.
Wight must remove the extension cords from the basement, use approved materials to seal an opening around a chimney thimble, get the smoke alarms to work in unison, remove a bed frame and mattress from the attic, replace batteries in a couple of “chirping” smoke alarms that are indicating their batteries are at the end of their lifespan, and clear and maintain a path to the emergency escape opening in the bedroom.
The city is expected to visit at 9:30 a.m. on Monday for an inspection.
Judge Robert G. Fields ordered Wight back in court Jan. 3. Wight is one of the seven people living in the house.
In speaking with the Greenfield Recorder, Wight expressed frustration with some of the regulations. He said he thought he had resolved a problem by fixing the house’s smoke alarms, but they operate only independently of one another and are not hardwired to an electrical circuit connected to other detectors throughout the house.
“(The city doesn’t) care about human beings. They only care about regs,” Wight said after meeting privately with Greenfield Building Inspector Mark Snow, Greenfield Health Director Valerie Bird and attorney Roger Reid, who is representing the city, in an unsuccessful attempt to mediate the case. “It’s disgusting.”
Bird said she and Snow are interested only in the safety of the house’s residents.
“That’s the point of the regulations,” Reid added.
Wight told Fields he believes he has worked diligently to rectify any problem he has been told to fix.
“I really am sincerely interested and dedicated to having a clean, healthy and safe place,” he said. “I really am.”
On Dec. 9, Fields ordered Wight to pay to lodge his two attic tenants in a hotel or motel with cooking facilities until a Dec. 20 court appearance, when Fields ruled that the tenants could stay at Wight’s residence the week of Dec. 23. On Friday, Fields said the tenants could remain there until Jan. 3, when Wight is due back in court.
Wight previously told the Greenfield Recorder he rents out rooms to the poor and homeless because he wants to help them, having become an advocate for the less fortunate due to living out of the back of a pickup truck for 10 years.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.