EVERETT – For landlord Yoon Oh, owning the Topper Motel on Broadway in north Everett is like a marriage.
“For me, after 16 years, she doesn’t look as pretty, but there’s past history,” Oh said, gazing at the chipped paint and dented doors of the vacant motel. “We’re bonded.”
For the past two weeks, Oh has torn out the carpeting, scrubbed the bathrooms and replaced portions of the crumbling walls of his old lady in preparation for a reopening he hopes will happen soon.
Oh agreed earlier this month to allow the state Department of Health to revoke his motel license so he can remodel the 32-unit inn and apply for a new one without going through the continuous state inspections needed for the compliance process. The license was suspended in May after state officials found a laundry list of code violations.
The motel was built in 1953, when it was described as “ultramodern, with insulation and steam heat.” Kitchenettes, mahogany woodwork and telephones lured Highway 99 travelers to the north Everett inn.
But luxury gave way to destitute families crammed into single bedrooms. Neighbors complained that the motel brought drugs, prostitution and other crimes to the area.
“It was the fanciest motel, and we were honored living right behind it,” Joyce Bonner, a neighbor since 1959, said. “We are no longer honored.”
Now, Bonner doesn’t let her grandchildren play in her back yard, which is separated from the motel by a 7-foot fence. When the motel was open, drug deals and fights could often be seen through the motel’s second-floor windows, she said.
“We’ve had people in our back yard who were running from the law,” she said.
Oh insists that the crime was there long before the motel.
“Was it the chicken or the egg?” he said. “That problem was always here. It’s a big city.”
Tall evergreen trees shade a narrow alley behind the motel, where used syringes, straws and used condoms were scattered on Thursday. Beverly Crumbaugh, whose back yard is separated from the motel property by a tall fence, said she found a pile of canceled checks in the alley that had been stolen from another neighbor. That was two weeks ago, she said.
Roberta Davis, who said she lived at the motel on and off for 20 years, said the stories of drugs and other crime are just rumors. She called the motel “a real family place.”
“This place is going to look great,” she said as she pulled handfuls of weeds from the motel’s front flower beds. “Hopefully, it won’t get the same reputation it had before.”
Davis said she has lived with a friend in Marysville since the motel was shut down. Now she cares for the flower beds as if they were her own.
“The owner really cares about people,” she said. “I try to help out.”
Neighbor Ron Cain said he understands that those down on their luck need a place to live.
“But at the same time, are we supposed to put up with the prostitution, the drug raids?” he said. “This is a family neighborhood. And if he’s so concerned about helping them, he shouldn’t let them do drugs on the property.”
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
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