VOORHEESVILLE — Patrick Weaver of Voorheesville was recently sent to the hospital for mental-health treatment following an incident where, police say, he intentionally damaged a gas supply line leading to a clothes dryer in his home.

He was subsequently charged with seven counts of reckless endangerment as his neighbors were temporarily evacuated.

But Weaver says, not only did he not damage his own gas line — he suspects his parrot did the damage — it would have been difficult to do so fading in and out of consciousness for an entire week prior to the incident. A salesman who came to his door called 9-1-1, he said.

The Enterprise has also learned that Weaver is at risk of losing his 7 Lexington Court home.

On June 6, the Albany County Sheriff’s 9-1-1 center received a call for a resident requesting medical assistance at 7 Lexington Court. When emergency medical services arrived at the home on the leafy suburban cul-de-sac, the gas leak was discovered. Seven surrounding homes were subsequently evacuated, and National Grid arrived on the scene to cut off the gas supply to the home. 

“The gas leak could have caused a mass casualty incident,” a press release from the sheriff’s office said.

Weaver was transported to Albany Medical Center and treated for a mental-health crisis, according to a post from Sheriff Craig Apple. A subsequent investigation found that Weaver had intentionally damaged the gas line running to the dryer, the sheriff’s office said. 

On June 13, Weaver was charged in New Scotland Town Court with seven counts of second-degree reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, according to a release from the sheriff’s office. Weaver was released on his own recognizance, the office said, and orders of protection were issued for the victims.

The sheriff’s office has not responded to repeated inquiries from The Enterprise.

Foreclosure

Over the past few years, Weaver told The Enterprise on June 20, he’s been “going through a lot of trouble.” He said trying to save his home on his own was “overwhelming.”

“I was going over the foreclosure papers,” he said, “and I remember I was starting to drink, and that was a bad thing,” he said. “Don’t ever [drink] when you’re depressed … Then I became actually suicidal, and I did try to hang myself. I mean, I put a rope around my neck and then I realized, what the hell am I thinking? This is a permanent solution for a temporary problem. I can get through it. It’s only stuff.”

Weaver obtained sole possession of the Lexington Court home in 2004, the property having previously been in the hands of a family trust, according to court documents. 

Weaver had been living in Delmar, he said, and his father didn’t want to sell the Voorheesville house. For the first year he was back in the house, Weaver said, he “was pretty much living in the garage,” and that he “couldn’t really walk” into the main part of the home. But he promised his father he “wouldn’t get rid of the house.”

In 2004, Weaver signed a mortgage agreement for $53,600.

The loan has since been sold to three different companies following the initial agreement made between Weaver and Homestead Funding Corporation.

In a May 8 notice of pendency action filed with Albany County Supreme Court, Loancare, LLC, the current mortgage owner, said it was looking to secure the entire amount and then some, which Weaver had agreed to pay in October 2004. 

“There is now due and owing to the plaintiff, the principal sum of $65,238.15 with interest thereon from October 1, 2019 plus accumulated late charges together with any sums advanced by the plaintiff on behalf of defendant,” according to court documents. 

The filing states Weaver has failed to make a mortgage payment since November 2019. 

Explaining why he stopped making payments, Weaver said, “Well, what happened first is, I used to work for Home Depot and I was coming up on my 20-year anniversary, and they were slashing everybody,” and he also said he was due a large bonus. 

After losing his job at Home Depot, Weaver started his own painting business. He had a good first year, but a bad second one, he said. 

“I was just robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he said.

Pretty soon, he was trying to work amid the pandemic. 

“That didn’t help out,” he said of working during coronavirus, “and then everything really started to escalate, snowball from there.” He was working on a home that was for sale and storing his equipment there overnight. That home was then sold. And, along with it, $5,000 of his equipment disappeared, Weaver said, adding that he never got paid for the job.

He then got a job as a heavy-equipment operator at a warehouse, continuing just to get by. He was recently let go from that job. 

The May 8 notice of pendency from Loancare, LLC, says, in addition to the property at 7 Lexington Court, it is also seeking possession of “all fixtures and articles of personal property now or hereafter attached to, or used in connection with mortgaged premises, all as is more fully set forth in said mortgage.”

The company is demanding a judgment against Weaver that, among other things, takes away his “right, title, claim, lien and equity of redemption in the mortgaged premises,” and allows Loancare to sell the property, so it can be paid the money it’s owned plus other costs and expenses. 

The property has an assessed value of $270,000, according to New Scotland’s 2022 tentative assessment rolls, and a full-market valuation of $330,300.

Zillow estimates the home’s value at $373,100, with a range between $343,000 and $403,000. Redfin puts it at $316,800, with an estimated sale range between $311,000 and $343,000.

If Loancare, LLC, which has had its share of problems with government regulators and its own customers, sold the home, Weaver wouldn’t receive the difference, he said.

Piecing together what happened

The day after he contemplated suicide, Weaver remembered waking up and going into a violent shaking fit, which turned into a panic attack, which turned into a heart attack, he said. 

Weaver said he remembers walking down to the Voorheesville Memorial Day parade, on May 28, which would put the Sunday he remembered the shaking as taking place as May 29. Weaver said he was on the second floor of his home and remembers falling down. He was unconscious for a time, he said. 

“I remember being really dehydrated and needed water, and I remember crawling down cause I couldn’t stand up,” he said. “I remember crawling down and getting into the kitchen because I remember I had a bottle of water on the bottom shelf in the door [of the refrigerator], getting that.”

He was on the kitchen floor for a few days, he said. 

Weaver said he remembered his dog and bird, each in their own way, trying to revive him. 

He then remembered a knock on his door, he said.

“Thank God I needed a roof or else they said I probably would’ve been dead,” Weaver said; he waved in the roofing salesman. 

This would have been June 6. 

“Next thing I know, I got a fireman running me out the front door,” he said.

He said he remembered a hiss and the smell of gas as he was being taken out of his home by the firefighters.

Weaver was asked about the sheriff’s version of the events: That he intentionally damaged the supply line. 

“That, I doubt,” he said. “I think the parrot’s been gnawing on the line. Even Niagara-Mohawk [National Grid] said that ain’t cut.”

Weaver has had Bandit, the parrot, for 30 years. There is evidence of Bandit’s destruction all over Weaver’s home, and the laundry room in particular. Weaver said the laundry room was Bandit’s “room” — he often put his cage in there, and the bird had previously chewed his way through the line supplying water to the washing machine. 

Repeated calls to the sheriff’s Clarksville station for comment were not returned, nor was a direct message sent to Apple via Facebook, although it had been seen by the sheriff. 

In response to Weaver’s assertion that his parrot had something to do with damaging the gas line, National Grid told The Enterprise in an emailed statement that the company “responded to an emergency call at this residence, found a gas leak, made the immediate scene safe by disconnecting the gas and stopping the leak.

“We then issued a ‘tag,’ which requires the customer to have work done to make the gas service safe again. Once that work is done by the customer and their contractor, National Grid will come back, inspect the service, and, if safe, will reconnect gas service to the customer.

“National Grid does not offer inspection of the type of damage to a gas line, our role is to make sure it is operating safely, and if not, disconnect it.”

Battling back

This isn’t the first time Weaver has been in foreclosure. 

CitiMortgage Inc. tried to take Weaver’s home in 2010. 

That time, he said his payments went from $450 per month to $4,000 per month. 

Weaver said he was able to get help to keep his home out of foreclosure.

“They said, ‘Keep track of this. Keep track of that.’ I ended up going to court for that, [and] ended up winning that one,” he said. “Even the judge was like, ‘You can’t take this guy from 400 to 4,000.’ He goes, ‘I couldn’t even make a payment on that.’ He goes, ‘Make a deal with the company. Make a deal with him.’ So I was able to settle that.”

That year, 2010, was also the first time Weaver thought about killing himself, he said. 

He used to keep guns in the house, he said. 

“I got rid of the guns. I go, ‘This is not a good idea to have guns in my house when I’m feeling this bad,’” he said.

What’s next?

Asked if the incident had changed his mind about selling his house, Weaver said, “Well, the way the neighbors look at me nowadays, maybe I should leave.”

But it’s not as if his relationship with his neighbors has completely soured. 

He was in the hospital for a week, got out, and was charged with seven counts of reckless endangerment for putting his neighbors in danger but, when he got home, he discovered “the neighbors [had] cut the grass for me,” he said.

So, even though he can’t have contact with them, Weaver said he thinks he’s still on good terms with his neighbors.

Weaver said he had stents placed in his heart.

He couldn’t provide The Enterprise with hospital paperwork that said he had a heart attack, but did provide the newspaper with paperwork indicating he’d received a number of prescriptions consistent with someone who’d had a heart attack.

In the meantime, Weaver said he’s engaged a company to stave off the foreclosure.