Nothing seemed out of place when Megan Pennington and her family moved into their home next to the shuttered Watts Elementary in the fall.
Shortly after, she began to witness vandalism, prostitution and signs of breaking and entering on the property - and the situation has only grown worse.
Watts, which is tucked away on Costello Street, along with J.E. Robins Elementary, on Beech Avenue, have a lot in common. Both are owned by the Kanawha County school system. Both were closed at the end of the 2013-14 school year. Now, there's garbage littering the properties, shattered glass from where trespassers broke windows to gain entry, graffiti and a lack of consistent maintenance.
When called about the buildings' conditions Thursday afternoon, Terry Hollandsworth, Kanawha County Schools' maintenance director, said the school system's safety and security employees had just left his office. Hollandsworth, whose department is responsible for maintaining the buildings, said the school system now plans to chain the doors and board up all the windows on the first floors of the buildings, and - if there's continued vandalism - also board the windows on the second story of Watts and the second and third stories of Robins.
"When you start boarding up big buildings like that, it looks terrible," he said when asked why the buildings weren't previously secured, "and I just didn't want to do that to the community members, but I have no choice now."
Keith Vititoe, the school system's security director, said he told Hollandsworth on Thursday that the Robins building needed to be better secured after getting calls from dispatchers about juveniles on the property two days in a row last week. He said the school system can't afford to keep an employee at the buildings to watch them, but "no trespassing signs" will now be posted.
"The police are probably getting tired of getting called up there," Vititoe said.
He said the school system is concerned that trespassing juveniles will get injured.
"God forbid, one of them gets in there and gets hurt," he said. "Nobody will know it."
Hollandsworth said that, until Thursday, he didn't know about some of the poor conditions in the schools - like broken light bulbs on the floor and an intercom system torn out of the wall. He said his office had no reason to go to the schools, "other than when the police call" and his workers have to fix busted windows or doors.
He said the power was left on at Watts to run the fire alarm, which called police to the school when some trespassing juveniles stirred up dust that the alarms took for smoke. He noted that it also went off when someone started a fire in a trash can there.
The Kanawha school board voted in March 2015 to label Robins and Watts, whose students were transferred to Edgewood Elementary when it opened last school year, as surplus property so they could be publicly auctioned.
Superintendent Ron Duerring, who was on vacation late last week, said back then that there was an interested buyer for both properties and the auction could happen in a month, but he would not provide further details.
Then there was former student and NFL player Eric Smedley's idea to use Robins to host a court diversion program for juvenile offenders, but he was denied grant funding. Alan Cummings, the school system's purchasing director, said past leads on buyers have disappeared but that Charleston-based Goldman Associates is set to list the properties for sale "in the very near future."
Cummings said the school system had been working toward getting the properties listed, in case the original buyer didn't come through, and said the delay in listing was due partly to the time it took to research deeds and appraise the properties: Watts, at $53,000; Robins, at $76,000. He said once the school system gets a fair bid, it will call an auction and set that as the minimum bid; Jay Goldman, Goldman Associates Inc.'s president, broker and auctioneer, said he expects to hold an auction in six to eight weeks.
The schools, both built about 80 years ago, have distinctive challenges.
Pennington said she didn't notice anything out of place when she first moved next to Watts Elementary.
"Then we started noticing [that] prostitutes would bring their clients to the parking lot," she said.
The doors to Watts were locked when a reporter visited last Tuesday, but a few surrounding windows have been broken and boarded up after residents complained.
"The doors lock from the inside, but people break out these side windows and reach in to unlock them," Pennington said.
While she's seen police search the building after reported break-ins, she said the usual result is a single piece of plywood over whatever window is broken, instead of boarding them up to prevent future break-ins.
The lights in Watts Elementary were still on during the two days a reporter and photographer visited - Hollandsworth said he could see no reason why they'd purposefully be left on, although he noted that an employee getting something from the building might have done so. A broken security alarm beeps continually inside the school.
Peering through a back window, one can see classrooms still filled with desks, chairs, storage units, books, projector screens, photos and a slew of papers.
A dry-erase board in one classroom says "Welcome to Miss Kennedy's Class." Photos of classes from the 2013-14 school year are still hung on a bulletin board.
Unused air-conditioning units, art supplies, board games, a Christmas tree and other miscellaneous items fill the classrooms.
"It's a shame, because this all could be repurposed," Pennington said. "They could even just have a sale - home-schoolers would flock here and buy this stuff."
Hollandsworth said there are no student records in the schools and that everything still there is "junk." He said the school system used to store useful things there - like desks, kitchen equipment and cafeteria tables - but it moved it all out around winter because of the interested buyer.
The scene outside the school isn't much better.
School supplies are strewn around one of the entrances among other items: pairs of underwear, fire extinguishers, broken glass and garbage. An intercom system that's been torn off the building hangs by a few exposed wires.
A sign is still taped to a door directing visitors to the office. Another warns of student food allergies.
While such issues normally would push the city's Building Commission to inspect the grounds and board up the remaining windows, Director Tony Harmon said the commission doesn't have the authority to enforce building code violations on properties owned by other governmental entities.
"We really can't address it with the county, as far as violations and fines," Harmon said. "We would contact the county, let them know there's a problem, then, hopefully, they'd take care of it."
Charleston police Chief Brent Webster said the department's responses to the schools are generally complaint-driven.
"I think the neighbors have a legitimate concern," he said. "The best way for us [to address it] is to go in, clear trespassers and try to bring it to the attention of the county to board it up. It's probably going to be an ongoing process."
According to records from Kanawha County Metro 911, Charleston police have responded to two-dozen complaints at Watts and Robins over the past 12 months. Call types included breaking and entering, fire alarms, suspicious activity and burglary.
Pennington said the kids in the neighborhood tell her when they see people go into the school, and added that the situation is unfair to those children.
"We have a lot of neighborhood kids that use the basketball court and little play area, but I just think it's awful that they have to play around this," she said. "I think it sends a really bad message to the kids that nobody cares about them."
Less than a mile away, on Beech Avenue, Robins is the site of similar issues.
Although it lies closer to surrounding residences and offers little privacy, that hasn't stopped vandals from shattering windows and trespassing.
When a reporter visited the school last Tuesday, a door next to the school's playground was propped open. Inside, a large television still on a rolling cart sat at the end of a hallway.
Two days later, the door was locked.
While some rooms in that school were empty, the gymnasium was filled wall to wall with many of the same items seen inside Watts.
Outside, a newer playground sits just feet away from piles of glass shards. Abandoned and overgrown raised-bed gardens sit nearby, although the gate to them is torn off.
City Councilman Chuck Overstreet represents Ward 3, in which the property lies. He sometimes receives calls from his constituents complaining about the school.
"Mostly what I get is people who would like to see something done with it, and not just become an eyesore [that] sits for years and years," he said.
Billy Wolfe has lived in a house behind the school for the past five years. He periodically picks up trash around the playground, but it always comes back, he said.
Wolfe said he's surprised that the school system hasn't boarded up the remaining accessible windows, especially if it's trying to sell the school.
"I wouldn't want that kind of liability," he said. "It's becoming less desirable to buyers by the day."
He said he's also concerned that the school's degradation will drive down the property value of surrounding homes.
"I can be a little more understanding with a private property owner, because you're dealing with limited resources," Wolfe said, "but this is the school system for the largest county in the state."
Reach Elaina Sauber at elaina.sauber@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-3051 or follow
@ElainaSauber on Twitter.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.