It's a very weird house at 284 Hallock Road in Stony Brook, between the boarded-up windows, the leafless spires that stand on the lawn, or the weathered Stony Brook University chair sitting outside the padlocked front door.
Yet in local neighborhoods, it's just another overgrown and abandoned house on the block, left the weather while the community waits for someone to rescue the building.
While fires and foreclosures are a sad reality in suburbia, sometimes the reason these homes are abandoned are not as transparent, which is the case here.
According to Zillow, 284 Hallock is not listed for sale, though the site values the house at around $392,000. The site also lists the last sale date for the home as being in 2007.
On Tuesday, the house's overgrown shrubberies covered much of it from view, yet the lawn appeared to have been fresly mowed.
According to Town of Brookhaven records, on Nov. 9, 2010, the town placed an assessment lien on the property to cover the costs the town incurred cleaning up the property.
What do you think should be done, if anything, about abandoned homes in neighborhoods? Locals have told us they present dangers if not properly maintained to area children who may wander on the property, or attract squatters.
Let us know in the comments.
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