The house which is used as the rapper's latest album cover was ablaze on the same day it went up for sale.
The two-story bungalow that used to house young Eminem
and his mother Deborah went up in flame. The rapper's boyhood home in
Detroit area was on fire Thursday, November 7 at around 6 P.M. local
time.
According to Senior Chief Jack Wiley, the Detroit Fire Department
responded to a call for 19946 Dresden Street near East State Fair but
was not aware that it was Eminem's former house. When the crew arrived,
fire was coming out of a window on the second floor. They were able to
put out the fire but have not determined the point of origin yet. The
blaze damaged a portion of the top floor.
The house appears on the cover of Eminem's 2000 and 2013 albums, "The Marshall Mathers LP" and "MMLP2"
respectively. His mother bought the house in 1987 for $19,900 from a
couple who then issued a deed to her later in 1994. The property then
saw change of owners around 10 times before it was abandoned in 2009.
The house was later turned over to Michigan Land Bank who put it on sale
this Thursday.
An Eminem fan, Shelly Hazlett, of Clarksville, Tennessee, put an initial
$100 bid on the house, agreed to pay a $35 processing fee for the
property and put down a $500 deposit. She had plans to turn the 1945
house into an Eminem museum. She was devastated when hearing about the
fire. "If they would still let me have it, I would have it in a
heartbeat - as long its still sort of standing," said Hazlett who is
expecting to hear from Land Bank by week's end.