Blight issues destroy one property owner’s chance to sell
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - One East Baton Rouge Parish property owner says she’s tired of cleaning up after people when they choose to dump litter on her property.
On the corner of East Brookstown Drive and Evangeline Street in Baton Rouge, another man’s trash is not another man’s treasure.
“Well, if I knew who was dumping, I would load every little bit of this up, and I would go straight to their house, and I would put it right at their front door,” said Sherrie Carter.
Carter and her siblings inherited her mother’s and father’s old property, where the family house and business used to be.
Carter wants to sell the property, but she might not be able to if folks continue to use it like their personal garbage can.
“When we come over here to work, all we end up doing is cleaning off this property from everything getting dumped on it. All of us live over 20 miles away, and we don’t get to come over here very often,” said Carter.
Tires, furniture, food, and garbage on top of garbage cover the property. Every month, Carter is cleaning up other people’s mess and tries to stop the litterbugs.
“We had a camera and a light on the building up high, they tore that down. They took the fence with them, they just took it down and took it. They took the gate and the lock. My sister kept putting a log across the driveway, they would move it and dump. We would come back and move the logs, she kept doing that. Finally, they took the logs, so she couldn’t block them.”
East Baton Rouge Mayor’s Office says this is a problem they see far too often.
“Normally, when this happens it’s somebody who’s trying to avoid paying dumping fees to our landfill,” explained Darryl Gissel, who is the chief administrative officer for East Baton Rouge City-Parish.
It’s not always easy to track down the dumpers, but there are a few things you can do.
“The other thing that is really helpful is if an owner talks to the neighbors to say, ‘what have you seen? Tell us if you have seen a truck, does it have any marks or a certain car?’ The other thing we have had luck with is rummaging through the items left, finding a receipt,” added Gissel.
If you are having blight problems in your subdivision or around your home, the Mayor’s Office is encouraging you to reach out to your council member. If you have photographic evidence, you can go ahead and call Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers has a free app called P3 Tips, where you can send pictures and videos anonymously.
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