The New York childhood home of Donald Trump has deteriorated into a neighborhood nightmare, reeking of stray cats and decaying garbage.
Once a popular stop for curious visitors, the modest Jamaica Estates Tudor now greets passersby with cobwebbed windows, an overflowing mailbox, and a lawn overrun by weeds and discarded bags of trash.
"Everyone wants to say it's Donald Trump's birth house," neighbor Deborah Ayala-Braun told Curbed, "but after that, it was somebody else's house."
She and her neighbors have watched as the property was purchased and abandoned by an absentee LLC owner, who seems to have little interest in upkeep. In recent years, the house has flooded Ayala-Braun's basement and cut power to nearby homes due to shared circuits, leaving her without air conditioning one summer for over a week.
While the eyesore repels its neighbors, it has attracted an estimated 20-30 feral cats, reportedly fed by a volunteer. "DO NOT TAKE KITTENS AWAY FROM THIS PROPERTY," a sign warns.
Neighbors' attempts to resolve the situation with the owner, speculated to be a foreign investor, have gone unanswered. Some are now considering pooling funds to buy the house themselves to restore it, but they doubt the owner will be swayed.
"I want it to be occupied. I want it to have purpose," Ayala-Braun said. "I want it to have its own history going forward."
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