A recent report discusses efforts by Green Township OH (45211,45229,45238-39,45247-48) to address an increase in blight complaints.

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Director weeds out the worst of nuisance calls

Armed with Milk-Bones and a stack of complaint forms, the nuisance wagon eased to the curb.

Fred Schlimm, Green Township's director of public services, sprang from the driver's seat.

Schlimm was performing a rite of spring: inspecting a yard after neighbors complained about it being a mess.

"With grass-growing season, we're coming into the prime time of the year for these complaints," Schlimm said. He looked over the complaint form for a house he had visited before on Surrey Avenue, a street of modest homes in Bridgetown.

Schlimm conducted 343 inspections last year, a 56 percent increase from 2004. His inspections caused 205 letters to be sent from the township administrator to residential and retail property owners. Each letter requested a cleanup.

If the request is ignored, township trustees can declare the yard a public nuisance. That happened 76 times in 2005, a 52 percent increase over 2004.

After a property is declared a nuisance, the owner has 10 to 14 days to make things right. If the mess remains, the township hires a cleanup crew and charges the property owner. The costs of 2005's clean-ups ranged from $200 for cutting grass to $9,000 to remove debris.

Schlimm attributed the increases to aging housing stock, an influx of "people with different housekeeping habits than the folks whose yards are as neat as a pin" and increased township diligence.

"We are not the grass Nazis," Schlimm cautioned. "But the people who live next to these folks who let their yards go care about trying to maintain the beauty of their neighborhoods. The law does say garbage, junk and debris cannot be in a yard."

Green Township enforces that law because it subscribes to the cracked tooth theory. Left untreated, a fractured molar can lead to the ruination of a mouthful of teeth. The same goes for a foul yard.

"You have to be proactive," said Chuck Mitchell, chairman of the township's trustees. "We try to be as kind and as forceful as possible to maintain and improve the quality of housing in Green Township."

Schlimm typically finds tall grass and a bumper crop of noxious weeds during his inspections. On a recent trip to a house, he came across a stash of rusting barrels.

"Something around those barrels didn't smell natural," Schlimm said. The barrels were too rusted and riddled with holes to hold any liquid. But the area around them, Schlimm said, "was giving me a headache."

That wasn't the worst stench he's ever encountered.

"The first nuisance case I ever was on was the most memorable," Schlimm recalled. He was warned that "there was a bucket of puke on the back porch of a house. And, I thought, 'Yeah, right.'

"Then, I got to the house. It looked like a tornado threw the contents of the house outside. A dresser and TV sat in the grass.

"On the porch was that bucket."

At the Surrey Avenue address, Schlimm carried a few Milk-Bones in his pocket. Doggie treats come in handy. As he has learned in 16 years on the job, he never knows when he might have to pacify a pooch. A Milk-Bone gives a dog something to chew on besides an arm.

No dog appeared on the scene. A calico cat snoozed on the porch.

Schlimm noted his findings: Two junk-filled vehicles with tires in need of air, a tower of bald tires and debris spilling from a shredded bag of garbage.

"This is worse than the last time I saw it," he said. "This one will go before the board."

And it did. On Monday, the township's board of trustees declared the house to be a nuisance.

Schlimm can point to the areas of Green Township that generate the most complaints. He tracks them at his office with color-coded pushpins piercing a township map.

"Where Green Township borders the city of Cincinnati is where 80 percent of our pushpins are. That means, in the township, Bridgetown, Covedale and Monfort Heights are very vulnerable."

That vulnerability could be reduced, Schlimm believes, if the township had a property maintenance code.

"That would give us a one-two punch with the nuisance complaints," he said. "We see gutters hanging off a house. But you can't deal with that because we have no property maintenance code."

Mitchell has heard calls for such a code. "We'd like to do something with a code," he said. "But we have to make sure it is cost-beneficial to the township."

To view the online article please click on the following link: Cincinnati OH Green Township Code Enforcement