Abandoned House Near Azalia, MI

This is the house you can see at mile marker 20 off US 23. We call it the "dead house"

I had some interest in this house a few years ago, as we (my husband, brother in law, and I) would pass it on our way down to their parent's house in Ohio. So we saw it regularly, almost before construction stopped on it. It took a few phone calls, but I was finally able to track someone down in the county office who knew the house I was talking about. As it turns out, the guy told me the house was being built by someone involved in a driveway sealing scam, and he was on the run. The guy also told me it had to stand for a number of years before it could be declared abandoned, and the city/county could own it and tear it down. He was in a Catch 22, as he was stuck with the house and couldn't do anything without the owner's permission, and the owner was long gone. He said he'd love to use it as practice for the local firefighters.

He gave me the name of the owner and I did some online looking. I found an article in some archives, in a West Virginia paper, I think, that told of someone by this name under arrest in jail awaiting charges on a driveway sealing scam. The guy with that name appeared too young to be the owner, but it could have been.