When my family moved to Westville, we didn’t expect to encounter the blight that has become so prominent in Edgewood as a result of the influx of absentee landlords. But we have.
A neighbor a few doors down from me has kept up to 7 cars in his driveway (he works on other people’s cars) for the last two years and there was garbage throughout the property and on the front porch. The final straw came when the homeowner cut down a tree on the front lawn and left the dead tree to rot for six weeks. I knew if I didn’t act it would be left there all winter. So, I contacted LCI. That was in September 2019.
SIX months and many many emails later and we are crawling to the finish line. The email I rec’d from LCI today reads,
“We met the owner at his property and spoke with him about what still needs to be done. We allowed him 1 more week (so next Thursday 3/12) to get a few things picked up, we are beginning to see some progress”
I’m glad to hear about the progress, but the process is broken if it takes six months and this much work to get a homeowner to clean his property. I am looking forward to seeing the details behind the Mayor’s plan for LCI 2.0.
In the meantime, other folks in Westville are beginning to post about blight using the NextDoor App. The subject of the post on NextDoor is “What the hell is this?”
