Purchased for $440,000 in 1995, the Castro District duplex at 517-519 Sanchez Street has been raided numerous times over the past seven years, resulting in the seizure of large quantities of crystal meth, heroin, ketamine, cocaine and cash.
Two years ago the City of San Francisco sued the building’s owner for violating California’s Drug Abatement Act, charging ongoing habitability and safety issues – such as a defective exterior staircase and a lack of stairway handrails; missing smoke detectors and improper electrical wiring; unpermitted construction work; and a lack of heat – for which the defendant faced civil penalties of up to $1,500 a day as long as the violations were allowed to persist.
The lower level unit’s door, which had been “made of an old cabinet door,” has since been replaced and numerous other violations related to “building safety, heat, rodents and criminal activity” have since been addressed (albeit with complaints as to potential work without a permit).
And three months ago the “Wonderful Victorian home in amazing Dolores Heights location” at 519 Sanchez Street hit the market listed for $2.6 million, the sale of which is now in contract to close escrow.
$2.6m for a real piece of San Francisco history! It’s amazing to see such incredible valuation for a building that’s clearly in need of another $2m of serious renovation to literally clean out loose powder and rodent infestation. Then again… what a location!
There are no rodents, 75 percent of what was said about this guy was made up. He had tenants that wanted to buy brand new 3,000.00 dollar mountain bikes instead of paying rent and asid from the front stairs which I eventually simply put back up, those t tenants created the problems and if any one looked they have a history of doing this to people.
Spiders is a different story.
Hope they clean up the “crack” that was on the front steps
Its one block off Dolores Park. I thought this real estate oriented website would surely not call that the dreaded “Castro.” Except maybe when their is a headline to be made?
The house is on fire. Huge response from SFPD.
I’m extremely surprised this didn’t happen sooner at this location. Whatever the root cause (faulty outdated electrical/gas, neglect, squatters, arson, etc.), I expect we may begin to see more incidents like this given the myriad of old, unrenovated, and basically unsound “classic” buildings in SF. The original infrastructure in these types of buildings was not designed to support today’s uses.
UPDATE: Burned-Out Former Drug Den Back on the Market for a Million