We are all dealing with this issue, no neighborhood is immune. Maybe our area should follow these guidelines and impose penalties also. We all want to protect our property values.
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writerForeclosed homes that lie vacant and rundown need their lawns mowed and their yards cleaned up. Cities say taxpayers shouldn’t have to bear that burden.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Weeds stand waist high on the front lawn of the wood-frame, single-family house in Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood. Trash spills out open doorways into the driveway and yard.
The city will have to pay someone to come in and clean up the lot, board up the windows and cut the lawn. Similar scenarios are playing out in communities all over the country wracked by soaring foreclosure rates, where vacant, rundown homes are springing up as quickly as the weeds in their yards.
But now these communities are fighting back, demanding that property owners – often the banks that repossessed the properties – pay to keep these houses from falling into disarray. The state of California as well as Providence, R.I., and Trenton, N.J. are all pushing initiatives to prevent taxpayers from having to bear the burden of the housing crisis.