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What do you do about sloppy neighbors?
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Anonymous
| DS and I walk home from daycare everyday (it's just up the street). One of the neighbors we pass always has an old large brush pile rotting in the front yard and festering with bugs, as well a large piece of plywood with rusty nails sticking out of it that is no doubt very interesting to my 18 mo. I don't know these neighbors at all but I get increasingly annoyed with the hazard every time we pass by. I know I should just knock on their door and ask them to remove this stuff but a) is it my place? and b) I frankly hate confrontation (piss-poor excuse I know). So my question is, what can I do? Could I call the county and request bulk trash/brush pickup for a home other than my own? |
Anonymous
|
It's possible that it could be a health concern, attracting rodents and snakes. Contact your county's health department.
If the owner does not clean up and the county has to do it, the bill gets passed to the house owner. |
Anonymous
| Report them. The county will come and do what's appropriate. As a courtesy, you could send an anonymous letter, and say we plan to report you if the yard is not cleaned up in two weeks or some such. Is there anything extenuating going on, someone dying of cancer or some such? |
Anonymous
| Second calling the county, my husband's family did that on a neighbor once and it worked like a charm. The neighbor even complained to them about the "low-life who reported them" lol... |
Anonymous
|
+1 on calling the county in those circumstances. Our issue is more with neighbors who just keep their place unkempt, so a visual but not health hazard. Most yards in our neighborhood are generally neat, with some owners taking more care and interested in landscaping than others. There are two or three though, that just don't care at all. One in particular - they mow maybe once a month with a push mower and have never once trimmed the edges so the grass is spilling over and touching the street. We keep talking about how we're going to sneak over in the middle of the night and edge their lawn.
We had an appraisal done on our house a few weeks ago for a refi, and the appraiser actually made note of the neighborhood as having homes "in various states". Pissed us off. We got a good number on our appraisal, but it told us that it likely would have been higher if his impression of our neighborhood wasn't marred by people who don't give a damn. |
Anonymous
| When I lived in a group house, just after college and before marriage and kids, we didn't own a lawn mower. The neighbors apparently met (not sure at a meeting specially callled for us, or at a party, or what) and decided to offer to lend us a lawn mower. We laughed, borrowed the mower, and mowed the lawn. |
Anonymous
| OP here, thanks. Does anyone know a phone number or the department that I call? |
Anonymous
|
OP,
We have no idea where you live. |
Anonymous
|
"I know I should just knock on their door and ask them to remove this stuff "
LOL!! |
Anonymous
Those are the kind of neighbors we all want! The OP's situation is different though, as it sounds like there's dangerous debris in the yard. |
Anonymous
|
OP Here. Sorry for the omission, I am in Fairfax County. I found a complaint form online, for anyone who is interested.
http://166.94.9.228/DP1/Metroplex/FairfaxCounty/customerservice/selectbyservno.asp |
Anonymous
| OP, call your local Department of Health. For example, here's the link for ArlCo: http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/HumanServices/services/health/envhealth/HumanServicesRodentControl.aspx |
Anonymous
| I wouldn't bother confronting the neighbors. If they actually cared about your opinion or safety they wouldn't act this way in the first place. I would either send them an anonymous letter with a deadline to clean up (or you will report them to the county) or just file the complaint with the county. We had some absent owners in a house in our neighborhood and eventually filed a complaint online with Ffx county. They really do follow up. |
Anonymous
| Well, an anonymous letter is gentler. What if someone is dying of cancer? They're dealing with that and then the mortification of a complaint. I always try and give the benefit of the doubt. Send the letter, give it two weeks. I know a story ... |
Anonymous
OP here. I have seen the neighbors in passing. They are probably in their thirties and seem able-bodied. The woman who lives there walks home from (I assume) the bus stop in the evenings and once I did see her mow the lawn, so I assume they are capable of calling bulk pick-up. It's not like they have to remove/haul the items themselves. |