I was scanning around on Google Satellite View and happened to go over Bob Reuter’s boyhood home on Bailey Avenue just east of Fairground Park. Even from the air, it was looking awfully “lush,” so to speak, which was a change from the time I went by back in August of 2013, shortly after my friend and venerable South City musician had passed away in a freak accident. I went back a couple of weeks ago and confirmed that the house was abandoned and slowly falling into disrepair.

A review of city records and deeds revealed that the previous owner, an elderly woman, had clearly fallen behind on her water, sewer and property tax bills. And then, unlike so many other properties around the city, her house was auctioned by the Sheriff–and bought by some random guy in Florida who I strongly suspect has never even visited St. Louis, let alone seen the house in person. He’s just another one of the venal “investors” who thinks he’s going to hit the lottery when the neighborhood gentrifies in a few years. (On a side note, I found someone with the same name as him who was arrested for serious felonies in New England ten years ago–he has a super unique name so I wonder if it’s the same guy.)

He’ll be waiting a long time. In reality, what will probably happen is he’ll get impatient, and in a few years he’ll stop paying the property taxes, confused why the area’s property values never increased, and the house will be auctioned off by the Sheriff again, or maybe it will go to the LRA. But the chance of it ending up as a pile of rubble is probably the most likely result. This area of the city has always been a little creepy to me; the streets are blocked off in such a weird way that it’s really hard to get around, and it’s next to impossible to get in and out without driving around in circles. It’s just yet another forgotten corner, one of hundreds of forgotten corners in a city suffering from so much neglect.