On March 21 I wrote about a snow-covered sofa that had been on the curb in front of 820 Clay Street for at least two weeks. It was covered with snow and obviously of no use to anyone.
Woodstock Code Enforcement went into action and issued a Notice of Violation on March 25. You would have thought the property owner or renter might have complied rather quickly, but it took until today for him to move the sofa.
And look where he put it! Great, really great.
During one of the first Coffees with the Chief that Woodstock's then-new police chief Bob Lowen held, he talked about the "broken window" theory. If a community allows a broken window to go unrepaired, pretty soon the door is falling off the hinges. Then trash begins to accumulate and, after that, .... After that, here comes the old furniture. Right out to the curb.
I'm sure the owner hoped that a scavenger would take it and he could avoid having to pay Marengo Disposal to pick it up. Well, his hopes have been dashed. Who wants an old sofa that has been trashed and left out in the weather?
It's not to be abandoned on the front porch. And it's not permitted to be abandoned in the back yard, either. Maybe temporarily in the back yard, while waiting for Marengo Disposal to come for a special pick-up. But not for weeks or months.
There is only one way that a town stays nice-looking and that property values stay up. It's by prohibiting and preventing conditions like this to exist. Perhaps Code Enforcement will pay a return visit on Tuesday morning and cite the property owner until he cleans up his property and keeps it clean.
2 comments:
Good news and bad news.
The good news? The City of Woodstock has informed me that the sofa in this picture is not the same sofa as was out at the curb for two weeks. It's a different sofa!
The bad news? It's a different sofa!
Even you should know that the code enforcement cannot go onto private property uninvited.
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