Just do your job!

One of the issues in our neighborhood, just around the corner from our house, is the vacant/foreclosed house that has been sitting empty for 2 years now. It is trashed inside (according to the police deputies.) The house has an attached garage and there is a side door to get into the garage/house (as well as normal garage doors).  The main front door and a couple of windows have been boarded up.  The side garage door is the access point all the tweekers and squatters use to get into the house. It is found open at least weekly. According to the deputies the inside is full of needles, garbage and human feces. Disgusting.

A few times I have called the police (non emergency line) to report the house has been broken into again and also, since the police patrol our area so often, they watch to see if the door it open and will close it up. I have reported this to the county in January and again in April. It has always made me nervous that there are quite a few kids that have to walk past this house early mornings and afternoons on their way to the bus stop at the end of the main private road into our neighborhood.

I was driving past one day last week and of course the door was open again. The door just needs boarding up. How hard is that?! This time I snapped a picture of the door open and included it in my online complaint/report to the county. The next morning I got a call from a county person, who says the file is still open (from my last complaint in April or so) and someone was working on it in another department and gave me her number, so I could inquire as to the status of the open case.

Wow - was that lady ever a B.I.T.C.H! Seriously, I am like the sweetest person on the phone to people. I told her I got her number from the other county department and was calling to inquire on an open case. She said she has contacted the property management company for the house last April, but hasn't gotten a resolve and the case is still open. So, I just said "ok, well the house is still getting broken into weekly, so I wanted to let you know." Then she starts to tell me there is a sign on the house somewhere with info as who the property management company is and contact info.....I stop her and say I am not getting out of my car and going near that house. It is used by druggies and homeless people on a regular basis. I do not feel safe. Then she start to give me the name and phone number of the contact person at the property management company. I stop her again and ask "well, is that MY job to contact them about this?" She curtly replies "I'll do it, then".

Why the heck would I call them? It's the county's responsibility to get this taken care of and make the property management company/bank that owns this house take care of it. Not to mention they also now stopped taking care of the landscaping. They did have someone regularly mowing it (it's an acre property) and now it's 2 feet high of weeds (which is also another no-no). She really ticked me off with her attitude.  Her department is code enforcement - that's her whole job!

On a semi-related issue - my property taxes went up almost $400 this year, as they upped the value of our home quite a bit. My mortgage is going up $61 a month. Ouch! I'm really tempted to fight this large increase in our property value. With the direct neighbor who's acre and 1/4 is literally filled every piece of junk imaginable and this abandoned disgusting house and it's use, I really do not think my house value has gone up - if anything it should be less. We would really have trouble selling our place for any decent amount of money with the neighbor we have.