Wednesday, June 23, 1999
Anderson issues cleanup order
Trucks, tools, assorted junk litter property
BY ALLEN HOWARD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ANDERSON TOWNSHIP — The lot contains four junk trucks, a back hoe, a snow blade, buckets, tail gates, doors, tires, barrels, tables, refrigerators, pipes, broken furniture, a camper and tanks.
It is property owned by Elma Sargent at 2720 Eight Mile Road and is the subject of a cleanup order by the Anderson Township trustees.
Mrs. Sargent doesn't live there. Her friend and caretaker, Frank Baker, said he lives there sometimes and he thinks the township is just nit-picking.
“I don't see how this could be a nuisance when you can't see it from the road,” he said.
The house sits about 400 feet from the road. Mr. Baker thinks trees along the driveway block the view of the 10 acres where the rustic tin-roof, framed house sits, surrounded by the offending items.
Mrs. Sargent and Mr. Baker appeared before the Anderson Township board of trustees last Thursday as the board considered a nuisance abatement resolution, which allows the township to remove junk from a property and report the expense to the county auditor.
The expense is listed on the property tax duplicate for collection.
The board passed the resolution and gave the couple 30 days to clear out the items.
“I am working to get it cleaned up,” Mr. Baker told the board.
Enough is enough, said Russ Jackson, president of the board.
“It is unfair to the rest of the township if we continue to let this go on,” Mr. Jackson said.
Barbara Heffner, township zoning inspector, said officials have given extensions several times before, but nothing gets done.
“I have visited the place several times in the last two years. Some of it is gone, but it is still junky,” she said. “One week I would go there and would see an area cleared out, but junk on another part of the property. The next week, the cleaned area would have junk and it would be the same junk I saw in another area the week before.”
She said she suspected the couple of moving the junk around on the property but never clearing it out.
“I will get it cleaned up because this is something I want to do. I have had some heart problems that slowed me down. Sometimes when I start cleaning it out, I get too hot and I stop. I am doing it all by myself,” he said.
Mr. Baker, 79, admits he stores a lot of junk on the property. “I like to keep stuff, but it is stuff I use. They said I should get rid of a back hoe, but I use the back hoe to clean out a pond.
“They want me to move a snow blade off the property, but I use the snow blade to clear snow off the driveway,” he said.
He said several trucks were left by Charlie Sargent, Mrs. Sargent's late husband, who died 10 years ago.
“Since the place sits so far back from the road, a lot of people used to dump stuff in here, before I put up a gate,” Mr. Baker said.
He said township officials accused him of moving stuff around on the property when he put furniture from the inside in the yard.
“I was clearing out a basement area and I brought it outside to see what I would keep. Everybody does that,” he said.
Other properties cited in the resolution include 8146 Forest Road. Mrs. Heffner said the property is owned by Michael Costy.
She said it does not have as much debris as the Sargent property.
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