Owning a home is dream that many have in their lifetime, but not all always achieve this goal. Sheila Garvey shared this same dream and decided to cash in all of her 401K to purchase her home., settling on a house on Silvis’ historic Hero Street.
“We bought the house back in December of 2019, knowing that we would have to fix it up,” Garvey said.
Garvey was not expecting a global pandemic to shut down the country. Three years later now, the home is set to be demolished. Garvey and her family have not had power, heat or water for months at their Hero Street residence.
“They don’t seem to care that we’re here. To be honest, I think that they would probably just demolish the house with us in it,” Garvey said. “It’s just been three years of trying to make this inspector happy, which we haven’t been able to do. He says the structure of the house isn’t good. We’ve reinforced everything on the house. We put in all new plumbing. We just don’t know where else to go.”
Garvey said throughout the three years of living at the home, her family has worked hard to make the repairs requested by the city of Silvis. Throughout that time, she said she has not been offered any resources to help with their situation.
The home now has brand new plumbing throughout, and parts of the home structure have been replaced and reinforced.
“Structure-wise, I believe it’s sound,” Garvey said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t put our lives in jeopardy if I didn’t think the house was sound.”
Courts gave the family thirty days to sell the house back in November of 2022. Those thirty days were up on December 21, and now the family is dreading the day of demolition of their home. The family has set up a PayPal account to help with cost of saving their home. That can be found here.
“We really need to figure out how to get an attorney or something,” Garvey said. “Right now, the house is up for demolition, so I don’t know how to stop it.”
Local 4 has reached out to the City of Silvis’ inspector to get their side of the story, but we have not heard from them yet.
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