AUBURN - A red house on Owasco Road condemned for years was demolished by the city of Auburn Tuesday.

A clawed excavator construction vehicle ripped down the house located on 120 Owasco Road, a three-unit vacant apartment building whose owners are now deceased.

According to Brian Hicks, the director of the City of Auburn's Code Enforcement, a couple from Sunnyvale, Calif., purchased the land and building in the late 1980s. Eng Hau Lim and his wife were absentee landlords, renting the building's units to tenants in Auburn while continuing to reside in California.

When the Lims died the land was transferred to a trust. Hicks said the last contact made with the trust was close to three years ago, but they haven't spoke since.

"No one can find them," he said. "We don't know if they exist."

Hicks said the building was formally condemned over seven years ago, an act the city takes when a building, due to lack of utilities, is uninhabitable. The executors of the trust were notified of the situation, Hicks said, but did not take action to fix the property.

The structure was soon deemed structurally unsafe and the order was made to demolish it.

For more on this story, read Wednesday's edition of The Citizen.