Sometimes code enforcement officers’ calls to all-too-often-absent owners who have let their property go to smash are ignored.
Typically, it doesn’t cost that much to fix things up, said Jeff Tate, assistant director of community development for the City of Auburn, and most of the time the City does lower profile things like boarding up an abandoned house or cutting back vegetation.
Then there are those “yecchh, uggghh!” cleanups.
Like the cleanup at on the squatter-infested property on 46th Place South on Auburn’s West Hill that wrapped up last October after notices and a court order to the owner in California accomplished nothing.
“Quite a heavy load of junk, litter, trash and debris,” said Code Compliance Officer Jason Arbogast, who shepherded the cleanup. “…We ended up finding a little bit more than we thought we would find.”
A bit of an understatement. How about:
• Thirteen 17.3-yard dump truck loads
• Five pickup truck loads
• Three large trailer loads
• Two stolen vehicles, two stolen utility trailers and compressed gas cylinders, a stolen portable toilet, a stolen portable hand-washing station and a stolen Genie scissor lift.
• Two recreational vehicles people had been living in.
• A 500-square-foot, non-permitted structure that had to be taken down.
All of which spilled outward to anger nearby neighbors and befoul a hapless tributary of Mill Creek.
Images flashed by on the screen in council chambers, drawing mutterings and head-shakings from City leaders.
Heaps of debris, an RV structure that had been there for an estimated five to seven years, Arbogast said, citing aerial imaging.
Over time the squatters tacked a shanty-like structure onto the home, and two people were living there with two full-size ovens, two bedrooms and a fireplace.
A tangle of electrical cords snaked. over the ground, stealing power from a neighboring property.
Although two regular occupants called the property home every day, Arbogast said, traffic routed up to 15 people there at various times.
Cleanup cost: $12,570.71, to be billed to the owner.
The City opened its case in January of 2016 after receiving fresh complaints from three of four neighbors, issued an infraction and levied a fine, which was paid. The City tried to get an abatement through a judge and found they needed to go to Superior Court for that. Finally the day came when the Auburn Police served the abatement warrant.
Job completed? Perhaps not.
Since the cleanup, Arbogast said, the City has issued a new infraction, having received new complaints about two more stolen vehicles, junk, litter, debris and someone living in a truck camper.
