MACON, Ga. — After a judge sent a Bibb County landlord to jail for housing violations, some of his tenants have mixed feelings about his sentence.
These tenants are next-door neighbors on Fort Hill Street. One says Wallace Adside just has a lot on his plate, but the sister of another tenant called him a 'slum lord.'
"I wish I could go see the back of the house. It's crazy. It's so scary to walk back there," Diara Dean said about her sister's house. "You walk back there, you might not come back. It's crazy. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous."
Dean and Adside go way back. She rented one of his south Macon properties about seven years ago.
"I was young, 19, trying to get on my feet. And so I started off with that, but I didn't stay long. Only about a year-and-a-half, because I couldn't live in it," Dean said.
Now, her little sister rents Adside's property at 1025 Fort Hill Street. Dean says the house is in rough shape.
"I've been in the house three years. The stove worked twice out of three years. They have to use hot plates and plug-in ovens and stuff to survive," Dean said.
So, when Dean heard Adside went to jail for violations at another property, she wasn't surprised.
"Everybody has consequences, you know? And when you do wrong by people, God has a way of breaking us down. I do feel like he deserves to be there," she said.
Bibb County's code enforcement department took Adside to court last Friday, arguing conditions in his property at 346 Grant Avenue could have hurt his tenants. They cited a letter from the state department of human services, listing, 'Possible abuse, neglect or exploitation of an elder person.'
"A bunch of exterior damage. Rot, you could see into the house from the outside. Holes in the roof. You could see sewage," Code Officer Craig Lewis, who made the report said.
The judge sent Adside to jail for 20 violations at that house. The county is still investigating other alleged violations at 1031 Fort Hill Street, right next door to Dean's sister. Lee Curry, who lives there, says the punishment is unfair.
"All he does is run around and try to repair all these houses. You know, he's trying to help people. That's surprising, because I've never known him to do something wrong," Curry said.
Dean says it's proof the properties aren't right. She hopes the jail time is a positive sign.
"He takes advantage of them. But this is the last time that he will take advantage of my little sister. Something's going to be done about it," Dean said.
Officer Lewis says Adside is the fourth Bibb County landlord in the last year to be jailed for housing violations. Adside is set to get out of jail Friday.
After he's released, he still must pay $6,000 in fines.