If you’re weary of the eyesore next door, cleanup just got easier

Once, the 10 acres of greenery along state Route 302 were well-tended, home to a family matriarch whose memories stretched to the early days of life on the Key Peninsula.

But Helen Skahan died in 2015 at the age of 96. The house where she lived for so long, gathering huckleberries and growing flowers, is surrounded by unweeded gardens grown to seed: a so-called nuisance property, one among many derelict homes throughout Pierce County drawing complaints and concerns from neighbors who worry about squatters and crime.

Recently, County Council members unanimously passed an ordinance to make cleanup and abatement of such properties easier, underlining it as a priority, beefing up staffing and pointing neighbors to a hotline intended to quicken responses to such concerns.

“We all ended up sponsoring it,” said Councilman Derek Young. “The council had a frustration with the number of properties out there that weren’t getting abated. There were just so many out there in the wake of the Great Recession.”

The old Skahan property sits in Young’s council district, but other members, including Doug Richardson and Jim McCune, have voiced similar worries over neglected properties and the difficulty of cleaning them up.

The forces that create derelict properties are various. Sometimes it’s foreclosure or simple abandonment. In other cases, such as the Skahan property, it’s a death in the family and subsequent neglect.

The calls from Key Peninsula neighbors ramped up earlier this year, after an RV occupied by homeless people parked near the property and caught fire. That led to an official designation: the property is condemned, meaning it’s considered unsafe to enter the structures.

Enter sheriff’s Deputy Dan Wulick, a veteran of the county’s Peninsula detachment, who knew enough about the property and the family to conduct some legal research that led to the executor of the estate.

“We were able to make contact with the executor, and they were willing to work with us and sign this cooperative agreement,” said Steve Wamback, administrator of the county’s Sustainable Resources Division.

“The property owner is allowing us to take care of the various solid waste and building violations on the property. There are piles and piles of household goods and garbage and rotting food.”

Allowing county involvement doesn’t mean a free cleanup service. The county will pay for the effort at the start, but the expenses will be attached to the property in the form of a lien that must be repaid within three years, or the county can proceed with foreclosure.

“When we do these cooperative abatements, we have a pretty good record of getting paid back,” Wamback said.

The cleanup will take time. The county will have to acquire a permit to build a temporary bridge over Little Minter Creek, which runs through the site. The bridge will provide better access to a property, currently accessible by narrow footpaths, littered with old appliances and other garbage.

Inside the home, the unmistakable leavings of rats and scattered hypodermic syringe caps underline the continued decay. A linked property on the other side of the highway includes junk cars that will have to be impounded and removed, and an old garage destined for demolition.

Given a choice, county officials prefer cooperative agreements to more aggressive measures, said Melanie Halsan, deputy director of the county’s Planning and Public Works Department.

“We always prefer to go the route where we work with the property owner,” she said. “This is a great example of that process, where the property owner is interested in having the county help them clean up this site.”

The centerpiece of the county’s new nuisance property ordinance requires “resolution” of reported problems within 90 days — a high standard likely to be complicated by circumstances associated with individual sites. But it adds urgency, said Wamback. The hiring of two additional staff members assigned to code enforcement backs up the notion with boots on the ground.

The hoped-for outcome on the Skahan property and other sites returns the property to safe status, available for resale or redevelopment.

“Ideally, we want to see a beautiful piece of property clean of all violations, ready for someone to purchase it,” said Halsan. “It’s a gorgeous piece of property and it could be a lovely home. That’s what we want for this community.”

This story was originally published June 2, 2017 at 8:00 AM with the headline "If you’re weary of the eyesore next door, cleanup just got easier."