Hey, there’s a couple of what look like boats or maybe cars on the lot, and just north of the church’s lot there’s an old boat store or something. What’s up with that?
Heck, the pool is right across the street. Maybe it has a diving board, and all he has to do is bounce really high!
I wonder perhaps if it was originally a multiple-story building with only entrances at above-ground level?
If the (American) second stories and above were made of wood or other materials it might perhaps appear as if it were always just a one story wall with nothing above it once the more fragile upper materials fell down or decayed? And then the weak part of my hypothesis: then someone decided to use it as storage and put barbed wire over it? 
Looking at the area on zillow.com, it seems like the property in question is 1031 SW 28th Street. It lists the property as 401,623 square feet, which looks about right. It says there’s a two bedroom, 750 square foot house built in 1957.
They list the parcel number as #504221000140 and the ‘legal description’ is:
21-50-42 SW1/4 OF NE1/4 OF NE1/4,LESS PT DESC AS,S 208.71 OF E 208.71 OF W1/2 OF SW1/4 OF NE1/4 OF NE1/4
Mystery is kind of solved.
http://southflorida.blockshopper.com/property/504221000140/1031_sw_28th_street/
The Barretts are old Fort Lauderdale, meaning nearly a whopping hundred years. I don’t see how they can have a house back there, or why on Earth it would only be 2 bedrooms on that massive property, or even how the hell they get there, but it’s the answer.
I was hoping for pirates, escaped boa contrictors, corporate hijinks and maybe some zombie homeless but I guess fallen olde Florida aristocracy will have to tide me over.
But that site makes it seems like he’s only owned it since October 2007. That still doesn’t explain the massive wall or whether there actually is a house there now.
Get your google on!
I think that means that the web page was updated in October 2007, and that he was the owner at that time.
Here is the weird spot where I grew up.
OK that is my old house, but if you go up to the end of Sherwell Drive you’ll see a circle. On the other side of that circle you’ll see a lager lot with trees and a long driveway.
There are two houses on that lot. The entire property is surrounded by 8’ chainlink and you never, and I mean never see anyone on the property ever. I had two friends who lived up on the circle part of Sherwell Drive and they never saw anyone out on that lot.
But the yard never needed mowing, and the leaves never needed raking.
There were never cars see in the drive way.
Once, for cub scouts myself and a friend were selling raffel tickets. We were assigned routes to cover. That place was ours. We walked down the driveway and we each went to one of the separate houses. I knocked and was instantly greated by the barking of some very large dog. (I thought it was a doberman) A woman called out and spoke with me through the door and turned me down politely, but never showed herself. The same thing happed to my friend. Large dog, spoke through the door but didn’t see the woman.
We thought they were witches.
Exactly. If a real estate agent were to list the property today and the owner’s name did not match, they would have to have proof that the seller owned the property. We find this out the hard way ($3,000 fine anyone?)
I already burrowed into the records. He got it from what I suspect was his mother when she died in the 90s, one Claressa. It wasn’t his wife anyway, his wife is/was named Julie. Anyway, there were some permits filed back around then for “interior remodeling,” whatever the hell that got up to. Maybe he sealed it up. There’s an approximately quarter million mortgage on the property or at least part of it. It’s still worth a fortune though.
Sorry for the let down. I was all excited for radiation and ninja missions. It’s probably just some batshit old coot living in a cottage. 
Google fu on:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP0793841.html
Owner apparently is an inventor, and listed this property as his address on a patent in 1995. Could have been a house of sorts there 10-15 years ago that is abandoned and overgrown now.
Maybe he is a recluse paranoid inventor living back there somewhere 
Actually these building permits are periodic. One in 2001, another in 2004, and yet…we don’t see anything. Maybe he’s building something secret, a secret underground lair where he will do rape murders and invent new kinds of video cards.
Looking at the property in Google Earth, there’s a baseball diamond by the southeast corner. Surely those kids have popped a fly ball over that wall at least once. And none of them have climbed over to get it?
Oh, I’m sure they did. They just didn’t climb BACK.
One of your neighbors owns it:
oops I see I am late. 
I’m still intrigued. Surely the neighbors - especially the ones directly adjacent on the west side - must want to know what is over that wall. It’s just so strange to have a whole block cordoned off like that with such a heavy-duty wall.
Somethings still fishy. The lack of apparent entrances as well as the completely overgrown status makes me think that there is more to it than meets the eye. The land shows no place for any sort of gardens or animal pens, and a man’s gotta eat.
So revised guess: He’s holding onto it as long as he can to get the best bang for his buck when he sells. the wall is cheaper than maintaining the land and get’s him off the list of nosy compliance officers.
ahh …so the mystery deepens!
where are the “compliance officers”?----how did the owner get permission to build the wall?
Local zoning ordinances usually require a permit for building just about anything–and there are always regulations about setback distances, height of the structure, etc.
The adjacent residential lots all have normal-looking houses and back yards. What would happen if one of the residents suddenly builds a huge concrete wall surrounding his lot? Wouldn’t there be complaints filed, both by the neighbors and the city government?
Surely there has to be a building permit on file somewhere in the city engineering department? And along with it, a formal request for exemption from the zoning regulations that seem to be enforced on the neighbors…
maybe somebody gave 'em an offer they couldn’t refuse…(like Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” ? 
)