Front Yard Better, But Back’s A Pit Neighbors Complain Problem Now Worse In Spite Of Cleanup In/Around: Trentwood

It took several years, but one Valley man finally cleaned up the towering heaps of junk in his front yard.

Trouble is, that was only part of the problem.

The rest is his back yard.

“It’s worse,” said neighbor Carol Young. “He took all the junk from the front and stacked it in the back yard against his fence.”

Eugene “Harry” Hasse, who could not be reached for comment, apparently had salvaged and stored auto parts at 4603 N. Adams Road for more than 30 years.

In addition to the eyesore created by the vehicle parts, used furniture and old swingsets, neighbors are concerned that dry scrap wood poses a fire hazard.

They’re also tired of putting up with certain creatures that have made the area their home.

Neighbors say that mice keep several stray cats coming around. Mosquitos breed in old water-filled tires. They also reported problems with skunks.

Complaints to the county that began in 1987 led to a warrant for Hasse’s arrest in 1992, after he failed to bring the property into compliance.

Hasse then cleaned up the front yard, and that complaint was dismissed in 1993.

Responding to a different complaint about the back yard, county zoning enforcement officer Allan deLaubenfels inspected the property this month and found a violation of illegal storage of junk cars and parts.

Unless Hasse makes an effort to take care of the problem, the matter would go to court. The maximum punishment for the simple misdemeanor is a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail.

Those who live behind Hasse just want it cleaned up.

“It’s terrible,” said neighbor Janice Schultz. “We were kind of hoping it’d burn down,” she said, half-joking.

Carol Young agreed.

“I’ve given up,” she said. “It’s gonna take a fire or something before anyone’ll do anything - that’s what everybody’s worried about.”

Young got fed up with piles of scrap wood spilling over the fence. “It was leaning over, falling into my back yard,” she said.

So she started shoving the debris back to the other side of the fence, and Hasse finally moved some of it to another part of the back yard.

Although her husband agrees that the wood piles present a fire hazard, he’s a little more sympathetic to Hasse’s right to store items on his land.

“It’s his property,” Mike Young said. “I have my own junk. Don’t bug me, and I won’t bug you.”

But Jim Osborne, who also owns a house behind Hasse’s property, doesn’t see it the same way.

He’s downright irate.

“We don’t have to live in that kind of environment,” Osborne said. His son, Mike, lives in the house with his family.

“My fence is leaning in the back yard,” Jim Osborne said.

Hasse had told Osborne last year that he would clean up the back yard when winter was over.

DeLaubenfels said he hoped that Hasse would quickly respond to the county’s letters.

Hasse had told deLaubenfels that it was expensive to haul away items to the dump.

“He seems like a reasonable sort of person,” deLaubenfels said. “He works at it. It just seems like he forgot to finish it.”