Happy home torn by grief lives as an empty property with a painful past
Police consider house left vacant for 27 years a threat to community safety
Blackthorn Ave. is a modest street, but a pretty one. Most of the two-storey postwar homes that line the narrow road near Caledonia Rd. and St. Clair Ave. W. are well maintained, their small front yards adorned with beds of flowers or neatly trimmed grass.
But there is one house that stands out like a blackened tooth. The semidetached home is vacant and has been for as long as anyone can remember — 27 years, according to the local councillor. Squatters and wild animals have periodically made it their home, and police consider it a threat to community safety.
The house has become notorious, but what’s less well known is the family tragedy concealed behind its boarded-up façade.
Exactly how the house came to be empty is something of a local mystery. But longtime residents remember it was once occupied by Grace and George Hall, a quiet couple with two children who never caused any trouble.
Around 1988, George died, and some- time after that Grace left, some say in an ambulance. Residents who spoke to the Star didn’t remember seeing her at the house again. No one even came back to clear out her belongings. Photos taken by the police last month show dishes still piled in the ruined kitchen and the chaos of books and photos strewn from open drawers.
“The old lady gone to the hospital, I heard, and then just, they locked it up,” Art Balkos said.
Balkos has lived in the neighbourhood since 1966. He called the situation “very strange.”
Maria Ali lives across the street from the house, and every day she’s confronted by the blighted building when she walks out her front door. Like many other residents, she thinks something should be done to fix up the place.
The local councillor believes the empty house is “a health and safety issue.” It’s attached to two other homes, both of which are occupied.
“If someone gets in once again, and they’re squatting, who knows, maybe the place can go up in fire,” said Councillor Cesar Palacio. This month, Palacio met with police, city licensing officials and residents to try to figure out what to do about the property.
The problem would be easier to solve if the house’s owner had fully abandoned it. But although the place is empty, it’s not uncared for. In all the years that it has been vacant, George Hall Jr., Grace and George Sr.’s son, has dutifully paid the property taxes, including the municipal fines levied against him for allowing his childhood home to deteriorate. As long as he settles the bills, the city has few options.
In an interview from his home in Whitby, Hall, who is now 80, told the Star why he has spent decades hanging on to an empty home, and revealed the story of a family that was torn apart by grief.
Hall recalled that he grew up in a “happy home” with “a very good set of parents.” He explained that Grace didn’t die after leaving the house, as some in the community believe. In fact, she lived until 2005, to age 94. But according to Hall, she was never the same after her husband died. Faced with the loss of the man she had been married to for 55 years, she had a mental breakdown.
Hall said he can’t remember how long she was alone on Blackthorn, but eventually she was moved to a nursing home. The pressure of having to look after her, coupled with the loss of his father and trying to hold down a job at IBM, took a tremendous toll on George Jr.
“The only way I could keep my mind clear was I just avoided coping with that house. Otherwise I would have been broken by it,” he said.
Hall still can’t bear to return to the house. But he says he understands the situation is “painful” for those who live nearby, which is why, on top of taking care of the property taxes, he says he’s paid to have the roof repaired, a fence erected and raccoons removed. He wouldn’t reveal how much money he’s sunk into the vacant house, but said he’s been retired for 23 years and has been spending his pension.
Hall said he’d love to be rid of the home, and he’s seeking help from family members to sell it. But he’s clearly still not at peace with what happened on Blackthorn.