April showers are one thing. But in Madison, the month is also known for a flood of complaints about messy, junk- and debris-filled yards.

A review of city inspection records from 2004 through 2008 shows the month of April is a popular time for turning in that neighbor with a few too many broken children’s toys strewn about his lawn or for city inspectors to go trolling for properties where a broken-down vehicle has been sitting so long weeds are beginning to invade the engine block.

Over the five years, April saw an average of 175 referrals per month to the city’s Neighborhood Preservation and Inspection Division, the most of any month. March was busy, too, with an average of 150.4 referrals, but the second and third most came in September, with 155.8, and August, with 153.8.

George Hank, director of the division, said the April numbers are most likely “because the snow is retreating and exposing trash that has built up over the winter,” and the increase in complaints in August and September can in part be blamed on UW-Madison students moving in and out of their apartments.

For the people who live near poorly maintained properties, the irritations can be many.

As of Tuesday at 901 Oakland Ave., a rental property in the Vilas neighborhood on the city’s Near West Side, there were old, wet newspapers littering the front steps and porch, used charcoal on the parkway, and cans, bottles and other trash in the bushes.

“Lots of broken glass” and other “party paraphernalia” have been common sights outside the home over the years, said Rosemary Bodolay, president of the neighborhood association. “I had to take my dog off the sidewalk the other day (because of the broken glass).

“After a football game, it’s much worse,” she said. “What you see now is just what came through the snow.”
The property has been written up three times since 2005, and city inspector Scott Kerr said another notice was being written for problems earlier this week.

From 2004-08, city inspectors handled 6,519 cases in which “junk, trash and debris,” or JTD, was the primary complaint about a property. In 77 percent of cases, a notice to clean up was issued.

Over the same period, 908 JTD citations were issued — typically because property owners failed to respond to a notice — and there were 54 referrals to the city attorney’s office for cases in which the owner had repeatedly failed to maintain the property.

So what constitutes a mess worthy of an inspector’s notice? Like beauty, it’s largely in the eye of the beholder.
Some see a single scrap of garbage on a lawn in an upscale Madison neighborhood and call the city, Hank said. But in unincorporated Dane County, where neighbors can be few and far between, the accumulation of junk might go unnoticed for a long time.

“The neighborhood will set the standard,” said Roger Lane, Dane County zoning administrator. County inspector Pat Klinkner said that people generally want to be neighborly meaning that sometimes, “when we get the call is usually when it becomes somewhat out of control.”

Dane County does not keep an electronic database of junk complaints, but Lane estimates his office sees about 75 to 100 a year.

A Madison ordinance requires yards to be “maintained in a clean and sanitary condition free from debris, rubbish or garbage, physical hazards, rodent harborage and infestation, and animal feces,” and Dane County describes “junk” as “garbage, waste, refuse, trash, any used motor vehicle upon which no current license plate is displayed, any inoperable motor vehicle, any used tire or used motor vehicle part, and any scrap material such as metal, paper, rags, cans or bottles.”
Neither has a checklist for, say, how many distinct pieces of trash constitute a violation, and about the only hard and fast rule in Madison and Dane County is that vehicles parked on a residential lot must run and be licensed.

“You know it when you see it,” Hank said of properties that get notices to clean up. “Staff have been doing this long enough to know yes, it’s a violation, or no, it’s beneath our notice.”

Standards for how hard government officials look for problem properties also vary. Dane County responds only to written complaints, while Madison opens a case on any complaint from the public but also will investigate a property reported by another city worker or elected official. Hank’s division also conducts “surveys” of areas of the city — basically sending out inspectors to look for violations.

In Madison, the residential properties with the most JTD notices from 2004 to 2008 tended to be rentals. A four-unit — now vacant and for sale — at 5834 Russett Road had the most, with 11. Four others, all rentals on the West or South sides, had 10 each.

“There’s no question they’re tougher on rentals than they are on single-family homes,” said Vern Acker, who owns a West Side five-unit that was issued 10 notices in the five years. “Is it fair? I don’t know.”

More broadly, the streets whose properties collected the most notices were in the central city and considered places where UW-Madison students live. Mifflin Street saw the most complaints, or 282. Balsam, Russett and Hammersley roads — generally west of the Beltline and Verona Road — also were in the top 10, as was East Washington Avenue on the East Side.

Suddeth Investments, which owns 20 properties in Madison, including 11 in the 400 and 500 blocks of West Mifflin Street, received one of the highest numbers of cleanup orders from 2004 to 2008 — 65.

Bob Suddeth Jr., who works in the family-run apartment-rental business, said city inspectors will go through the 500 block of West Mifflin before the annual Mifflin Street Block Party and order a clean up.

“Anything that can be thrown or burnt, they pretty much want gone,” he said.

To report a problem

To report trash or other junk at a Madison property, go to the city’s Report-A-Problem site at www.cityofmadison.com/reportAProblem, or call 608-266-4551.

In unincorporated parts of Dane County, call 608-266-4266.