City orders yard cleanup – not really

Heather Davis and at least five of her neighbors received a letter Thursday that gives new meaning to the phrase “junk mail.”

It accused the 26-year-old mother of violating the city’s nuisance code by leaving an unused junk vehicle and other unsafe and unattractive items in her yard.

“My biggest concern was that my landlord would be held responsible, and I would be kicked out,” Davis said Monday. “I didn’t want to get fined. I didn’t want to get evicted.”

But details in the letter raised as many questions as a 3-year-old who just learned the word “why.”

First, the letter came from the city of Spokane’s code-enforcement office, but Davis and her neighbors live on the 800 and 900 blocks of South Collins Street in Spokane Valley.

Plus, the city of Spokane logo printed on the letterhead and on the envelope was fuzzy, perhaps a poor-quality copy from the city’s Web site, which anyone with basic computer skills could copy.

And grammatical errors diminished the letter’s somewhat threatening tone.

“If action is not taken to clean up your property in the next two weeks (from the time you receive this letter) or Further Action Will Be Taken!” it reads.

Davis’ phone call to Spokane’s mayor’s office and a visit to Spokane Valley’s City Hall set the record straight. The letter was a fake, and now neighbors are guessing why they received it.

“I figure it’s somebody who wants to make the neighborhood look nicer,” Davis said.

The local Better Business Bureau agrees with her theory that a nearby property owner tried to take the law into his or her own hands.

Letter recipient Troy Burke, 37, thinks somebody just must have been bored.

“It kind of makes you scratch your head and go ‘Hmm . . . ‘ ” he said. “Why would they make the effort?”

Burke said he wouldn’t remove the four vehicles on his property “until somebody actually jumps in my face about it.”

If the letter was the work of a modern-day vigilante with a penchant for curb appeal and a trigger finger on a computer mouse, the message made a small impact.

“Right away, people went outside and started mowing their lawns,” Davis said. Once she learned it was a fake, Davis informed a resident across the street who was vigorously weeding, she said.

Spokane Valley Police spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan called the letter a prank and said the issue isn’t being investigated because no recipient has filed a report.

“It’s equal to somebody having their yard toilet-papered,” he said. “It’s inconvenient, but the reality is nobody was injured. It falls pretty far down on our list of priorities.”

Reagan said it would be illegal for somebody to flash a badge and falsely claim to be a code-enforcement officer, but for the letter to be fraudulent, the author has to have sent it intending to gain something.

Would a neighbor’s intention to increase property values count?

“I wouldn’t take that to court,” Reagan said.

Davis conceded that her stretch of South Collins isn’t the prettiest block in Spokane Valley.

“People don’t keep their yards up that well, but it’s not disgusting,” she said.

If someone wanted to see improvements, he could have sent out the city code, Davis said.

“To send a threatening letter is a totally different thing,” she said.