(Carolyn speaking. In the face of the City's massive fecklessness, Steve has given up and is looking to sell. My brother, the retired lawyer, took one look at James' back yard and said if I won't sue the City (he said something about 1983 and denial of equal protection; he also talked about public nuisance) I must at least see if I can embarrass it into doing its job. So, here we go.)
After the
media exposure last year, Judy and her kids moved out to a house in Carrollwood (Section 8? In Carrollwood??). Her oldest son, Josh, then moved back in at
6003 with his pregnant girlfriend for a few months. Although the house was still multicolored with screens from the second floor lying on the roof of the porch and part of the porch rotting out, it was at least quiet.
For a while.
Josh purchased a car which he parked front out in James' driveway. He moved his speakers from upstairs into the car and begin to play rap with the bass boosted so high that my windows rattled. After several weeks of this James asked him to leave. Shortly thereafter, Jessica, another pregnant young woman, moved in with her boyfriend and a couple of dogs.
The Price of Quiet: Raw Sewage on the Ground
About this time, summer, 2010, I was having all of my plumbing replaced. I kept smelling sewage but assumed it was from my pipes. My plumber took me out one morning and pointed out a pile of feces and toilet paper next to James' house just a few feet from my property line.
I emailed a complaint to Code Enforcement. Shortly thereafter I noticed that James had piled dirt on top of the sewage so it was not noticeable. Apparently Code signed off on the problem as solved.
Within a couple of days the sewage had again begun to accumulate. With the raw sewage came a horde of flies. I stopped going in my back yard or using my clothesline for fear of disease from the flies going from the feces to me or my dog. Aside from having my own back yard off limits, I was concerned about a pregnant woman living with raw sewage but she did not seem concerned or at least not enough to move out.
In February the pile was growing as were the flies so I wrote out another Code complaint (February 14, 2011), called the Health Department, and sent an email outlining the situation to my city council member, Charlie Miranda. On the 15th
Erika Frotman, from the Health Department, came by and took pictures of the pile of shit next door and said she would move on it as fast as possible (“fast” in her case seems to mean months). More helpfully, one of Mr. Miranda'a aides thought this was as disgusting as I did and had wastewater and Code out here within a few days. The wastewater people checked the sewage pipe in the alley and determined that it was functional and that James could hook up a pipe. The gentleman from Code was not pleased with all the Code infractions he could see from the street. He told me he would address the problems immediately.
The Health Department sent James a letter and several weeks later came out to do another inspection. Dirt had been piled on top of the sewage so they “could not do anything.” I gave them a call several days later to come again as the sewage was piling up on top of the dirt again. They did and sent another letter. When this got no results they turned the case over to their legal department. They sent a letter and James started digging and, he said, putting in a sewage pipe.
When I went out and looked he had only dug a trench about half way to the city pipe and had placed two pieces of his wooden fence over the end of the trench and another about two feet toward the house. I asked my plumber to come out and look at it; he and I both think that James ran a pipe out and then dug a cesspit.
With the two recent rains, the dirt under the closer pieces of fence is beginning to sink in and the fencing partly obscures it. When I showed it to the health department, Ms. Frotman said that as long as there was no sewage visible all she could do was close the case as in compliance.
Frotman gets paid for not doing shit
My neighbor and I get to smell it
So there you have it: A house bubbling sewage into the back yard. A homebrew repair. No building permit. No inspection. And a Health Dept. inspector who can’t see or smell, and won’t do anything about, raw sewage on the ground. And for this we pay taxes!
