Midtown property used as a junkyard, neighbor complains

Tucson, Arizona

The property next door to Travis Jane Sherbourne's home in the Midtown Dodge-Flower Neighborhood is an eyesore, but that's not really the problem.
The owner uses the property, which is vacant, as a junkyard, she said, and it's become a health hazard.
During the monsoon, mosquitoes breed and swarm and bite. And all year long, junk vehicles that still have gasoline in them fill the property. Neighborhood kids hide out on the property and smoke marijuana there.
"If they set a fire, there is a lot of dead grass," she said. "A fire near a tank of gasoline? Or just a fire on the property? It's not a good situation."
Sherbourne has complained repeatedly about the property to the city's Department of Neighborhood Resources. The city took the owner to court in 2006, and in 2007 did a court-ordered cleanup and placed a lien on the property.
The home has been uninhabited since a house fire several years ago.
According to Sherbourne, the owner started hauling trash and old vehicles back to the property a few months after the cleanup in 2007 and comes by periodically to deposit other junk.
She filed three complaints in 2008 and exchanged phone messages with a city inspector who kept asking to verify the address. She said she supplied the address each time, but no action has been taken on the property.
City Code Enforcement Administrator Teresa Williams said the city does have a record of the three complaints — two for junk vehicles and trash and one for bees. She said the city removed the bees but couldn't verify the junk vehicles and trash.
She said the house looks fine from the street, and inspectors aren't allowed to climb fences to look in backyards.
She said the file doesn't show whether the inspectors asked Sherbourne if they could go on her property. Sherbourne readily gave Taxpayer Watch access to her property to view the neighbor's property.
Williams said people are allowed to keep junk vehicles, provided they are screened from the street, which these are, but trash cannot take up more than 25 percent of the entire property.
Williams said Sherbourne will need to file another complaint if she wants another inspector to come out because the last complaint was in June 2008 and was not verified.
— Erica Meltzer

NEWS SOURCE