Five years after cracking down on illegal dumps, Pierce County code enforcement officers have turned their attention to junk cars. And they’re taking the battle to court.
In recent months the county has obtained five court orders to clear properties and bill the owners for the costs. The threat of lawsuits has forced other property owners to clean up on their own.
County officials say the lawsuits have become an effective tool to enforce a 2003 nuisance vehicle law.
“By the time you come to me, it’s pretty much over with,” said deputy prosecuting attorney David St. Pierre, who handles the nuisance vehicle lawsuits. “You’re going to lose.”
The tough stance on junk cars follows a 2002 crackdown on Pierce County’s worst illegal dumps.
Back then, the county identified a “Dirty Dozen” offenders – properties littered with cars, debris and garbage. In some cases, the county also identified zoning and other violations.
The cases resulted in civil lawsuits and criminal charges. The county spent about $1.5 million to clean up the sites – removing more than 650 vehicles from one property alone. The Dirty Dozen ultimately grew to 15 properties.
In 2003, the County Council approved a law addressing “nuisance vehicles” – damaged and inoperable cars and trucks that can become eyesores, depress property values, attract vermin and damage the environment.
The law allows the county to remove nuisance vehicles and charge the owner for the cost.
Yvonne Reed is a code enforcement supervisor for Pierce County’s Solid Waste Division. She coordinates Pierce County Responds, which brings together resources from several departments to investigate garbage and nuisance vehicle complaints.
Reed said it’s taken time to hire staff and create policies and paperwork to support the new focus on nuisance vehicles. The county now has two code enforcement officers devoted to nuisance vehicle complaints.
They’ve been busy. Since 2004 the officers have conducted more than 6,500 nuisance vehicle inspections. Nearly 6,200 vehicles have been removed – usually by the property owners.
Because the program was still developing legal processes, code enforcement officers relied mostly on their powers of persuasion to get owners to comply. Officers also helped by providing county dump credit and affidavits that allowed owners to scrap vehicles without proper ownership documentation.
“We do everything we can, short of coming over here and cleaning up the property for them,” said code enforcement officer Dan Simon.
But some owners have refused to comply, despite repeated warnings. So Pierce County Responds has referred 20 nuisance vehicle cases to the prosecuting attorney’s office since last fall.
Most property owners complied after receiving correspondence from St. Pierre, the deputy prosecutor. But in five cases the county sought and won court orders permitting the county to remove vehicles and bill property owners for the expense.
In recent weeks the county has cleared cars and trucks from three of those properties.
JUNK AND JUNK CARS
One of the properties belonged to Peggy Anderson, whose three-quarter-acre lot east of Orting was littered with camper trailers, furniture, assorted junk and nine cars and trucks.
Some of the vehicles ran, some didn’t. Among them: a 1975 Chevrolet pickup, a 1968 Dodge Dart and a 1978 Chevy Monza.
After receiving a court order, code enforcement officers arrived at Anderson’s house Sept. 27 with a private towing firm and a sheriff’s deputy.
As she watched them remove the vehicles, Anderson said she’s been trying to help her son learn how to repair cars. And she said some of the debris was the remnants of a second-hand store she operated but doesn’t have time for at the moment.
“As you can see, I didn’t have any place to really put it,” she said.
Court records show Simon had been trying to convince Anderson to get rid of the vehicles for nearly two years without success. Now she’ll owe the $490 it cost to haul them away, plus other costs.
Anderson praised Simon as “absolutely wonderful.” But she thinks the county could have helped her fence the property instead of removing the vehicles. She said she suffers from arthritis and carpel tunnel syndrome and has a bad back and knees. That’s made it hard for her to finish the fence on her own, she said.
Simon said Anderson has a “good heart,” but she’s had every opportunity to comply with the law.
Reed said property owners have few excuses, especially when the high price of steel means many scrap haulers will remove vehicles for free.
“It’s not like they don’t have the means to clean it up,” Reed said. “But for some reason – probably not a reason we would understand – they don’t want to.”
DELAYS PROBABLY OVER
Reed said resolution on Anderson’s case was delayed while the county developed its enforcement process. But she said long delays shouldn’t be a problem now that the process is finished and the county is taking property owners to court.
And the county has another tool to ensure owners don’t backslide after vehicles are removed.
In two cases it has obtained injunctions that will permit monitoring of the properties for 10 years. If nuisance cars reappear, the county can quickly get a new order to remove them. The county plans to seek such an order against Anderson.
St. Pierre said his legal efforts are secondary to the hard work of Reed and her code enforcement officers. But Reed said the ability to take cases to court will have a big impact on enforcement.
“It’s been a big help to add that last step,” she said.
Work done
From 2004 through early September, Pierce County Responds has:
• Conducted 6,563 nuisance vehicle inspections.
• Overseen removal of 6,193 vehicles (most were removed by the owners.)
• Assisted 1,330 property owners.
• Removed nearly 2 million pounds of roadside litter.
• Received 1,159 online complaints.
• Received 24,112 calls to its telephone hot line.
How do you define a ‘nuisance vehicle?’Under Pierce County law, a nuisance vehicle meets three of these criteria:
• It’s extensively damaged.
• It’s apparently inoperable.
• It’s at least 3 years old.
• It has an approximate fair market value equal to its scrap value.
Vehicles stored in buildings, screened from public view or associated with certain legally zoned businesses might not be Public Nuisance Vehicles.
For more information, visit the county Web site: www.piercecountywa.org. Select “Public Works and Utilities” from the directory, then click on “Solid Waste & Recycling.” Then select “Pierce County Responds.”
How to file a nuisance vehicle complaint
Residents of unincorporated Pierce County can contact Pierce County Responds at:
9850 64th St. W.
University Place, WA 98467-1078
Phone: 253-798-INFO (4636)
E-mail: pcresponds@co.pierce.wa.us
On the Net: Visit the county Web site: www.piercecountywa.org. Select “Public Works and Utilities” from the directory, then click on “Solid Waste & Recycling.” Then choose “Pierce County Responds.”
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