EVERETT — Several people in the Bayside neighborhood are fed up with a neighbor’s garbage and have asked the City Council to intervene.
“There’s an old Chevy pickup in the alley and what they continually do is throw their household garbage and kitchen garbage in there,” said Alan Miller, who lives a few doors down in the 2600 block of Rucker Avenue.
The address has been the source of numerous complaints over the years, Miller said, but the problem has gotten worse in the past several months. The garbage has drawn rats and crows.
“What they do is they just wait for the citations because it’s going to take forever for the city to get around to it,” Miller said.
He said he wasn’t getting a response to the city’s code enforcement department, so Miller came the City Council meeting Wednesday to make his plea.
“It’s all household garbage, it’s a mess and you can smell it a block away,” Miller told the council.
Miller said that only after his visit to the council did he receive a call from a code enforcement officer.
Kevin Fagerstrom, Everett’s code enforcement supervisor, said the department had no record of a complaint from Miller, but was informed of the problem by the city staff Thursday.
Fagerstrom went out and conducted the inspection of the property himself.
“There are clearly violations there,” Fagerstrom said.
No one answered the door at the property Friday, and bags of garbage were piled in the bed of the truck in the back alley. But Deborah Dickason, the registered owner of the house, said she and her tenant are aware of the problem and are working to address it.
“They had hired a friend who was supposed to be taking the garbage away every week,” Dicksaon said Monday.
“He has been in contact with me and we’ve been talking about getting the situation resolved,” she said. “He is keenly aware of it.”
By Monday afternoon, most of the garbage appeared to have been removed from the property.
The property has a history of violations. It was cited for a similar garbage problem in 2012, and the city issued a warning letter. The property was cleaned up and the case dropped, Fagerstrom said.
Dickason said the 2012 violation was against a previous tenant.
“He thought he could do garage sale-type stuff and he thought he could sell that stuff,” she said, when it actually it consisted of broken-down lawnmowers and similar unusable items.
The tenant has been in the house for about one year, Dickason said.
According to the city’s records, another violation was recorded in 2015, and given the amount of time that had passed since the previous violation, the code enforcement officers sent another warning letter.
Last week, the department skipped the warning and issued a citation to appear before a hearing examiner.
The city’s ordinance allows fines of up to $500 to be assessed. Also, Fagerstrom said, “We will request that the judge order mandatory garbage service.”
Fagerstrom said the Snohomish Health District also has jurisdiction over health risks, including vermin, although the city doesn’t often contact them directly.
“I encourage Mr. Miller to report it directly to them,” Fagerstrom said.
Miller said he thinks the neighborhoods ultimately need to take it upon themselves to police their problem areas.
“What I would want to mention to the city is, why don’t we get a bunch of volunteers, once a week they cruise their alleys, report back to code enforcement?” Miller said.
“It’s hard to keep a clean neighborhood,” he said.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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