DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — On Friday, DeKalb County completed a months-long process of getting court clearance to tear down a home on Highfield Drive near Stone Mountain.
Channel 2 Action News first reported on this property earlier this year.
Homeowners reached out to Channel 2′s Investigative Reporter Ashli Lincoln about a man named Gacori Mosely who had been living in the driveway of this property for nearly a year.
Mosely’s deceased mother owned the property, but it was destroyed by a fire last year.
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The county’s Code Compliance Administration received a complaint from a neighbor about structural problems with the property.
The county sent several warnings to Mosely’s sister. County documents indicated an inspector observed pests, rats, mosquitoes, roaches, standing water, bacteria, human waste, broken appliances, trash, furniture, paint cans and buckets, auto and household chemicals, standing dirty water, a person sleeping in a vehicle and an unsound structure.
By October of 2023, the county’s Nuisance Abatement Team delivered the case to the county’s Law Department for review and to be placed on the court docket. The case went before a judge in the In-Rem Nuisance Abatement Court. Last month, a judge signed an order granting DeKalb County authority to demolish the property.
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DeKalb County Community Development told Channel 2 Action News they’ve offered assistance to Mosely on several occasions but he has refused.
CEO Michael Thurmond credits Channel 2 Action News’ reporting for alerting them about the property’s severity.
“The fact that this government needed to act, and act expeditiously is this young lady Ashli Lincoln. Thank you for being persistent and consistent,” Thurmond said.
To date, the county has demolished 694 properties.
The county says they’ve placed a lien on the property for $38,000, which is the total cost the county is paying to demolish this property.
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