Kansas City Missouri firefighters responded to a house in the 3000 block of East 6th Street this morning to a fire in an abandoned house that is a known location for squatters.

According to fire investigators this is the third or fourth fire in the last 30 days, and the sixth or seventh fire in the last 18 months, one resulting in a fatality in February of 2020. All of the fires have been deliberately set by by squatters inside the house.

Neighbors are visibly frustrated because the owner of the home, refuses to rectify the problem or do anything to improve the home.

The house has a long history of codes and dangerous buildings cases dating back almost 20 years. Cases include a multitude of property violations such as trash, rank weeds, holes in roof, abandoned vehicles on property and failure to register an abandoned property. The house was placed on the dangerous buildings list again in January of 2021.

There is an open dangerous buildings case on the property and one neighbor is even pursuing civil litigation against the property owner for the degraded condition of the property and the negative impact it is having on neighboring residents in terms of safety and property values.

“We’ve had an interested developer ready to go on the property, but the property owner won’t respond and won’t show up in court so it’s extremely difficult to move forward,” said Megan Morgan who is a Board Member for the Independence Plaza neighborhood Council and lives two doors east of the home. “Needless to say we are more than a little ticked off.”

Firefighters indicated that today’s two-alarm blaze may be the final straw given there’s virtually nothing left of the interior of the home.