title: GOVERNMENT GONE WILD: NY Man Return From Hospital To Find His Home Demolished By City
text: Can you imagine? This man goes for a knee replacement and returns home to find the city had demolished his house! Talk about big brother!  A Long Island town hall ordered the demolition of a local resident s house while he was recuperating from knee surgery in Florida. Philip Williams headed to Florida last December to escape the winter and undergo an operation. But by the time he returned home in August, his home in West Hempstead, Long Island had been razed to the ground. All that remained was an empty lot, covered in grass.  Speaking to CBS News, Mr Williams, who is 69, said:  You don t expect to leave and get surgery and come back to find everything gone. I m outraged. They shouldn t be able to do that. This was preventable. It s unjust and a tremendous disservice to me.  Neighbors complained to the local town officials that the house, which was built in the 1920s, was in poor condition and not properly maintained. The town sent a number of registered letters to Williams, but he claims he never saw any of them as he was in Florida recovering from surgery. He has instructed local lawyer Bradley Siegel to sue the town for compensation. The town claims it wrote to Williams in October and November, before he went to Florida for knee replacement surgery. He insists he never read the notices. Town spokeswoman Susan Trenkle-Pokalsky said:  Hempstead Town followed all proper procedures with regard to property owner notification relating to proceedings. The structure posed a danger to the public and was taken down in accordance with the law.  Williams denied that he had abandoned the house and said that it contained his late-wife s jewelry, personal possessions as well as trees that his parents had planted in the 1940s. Everything was removed from the site following the demolition. He said he wants an explanation from the town on why it knocked down his home and where his personal belongings now are. Social media users condemned Hempstead Town for its actions. One claimed it had made a major mistake:  Did they even bother to look if there was lien a foreclosure, civil case pending?  How hard is it to investigate the status of the owner?.  Hey Hempstead you just guaranteed this man a nice payout. Instead of Hempstead. He will be moving to harbor town soon enough.  Read more: Daily Mail