what can I do with this neighbour's trash (foreclosed, vacation home)

[NPparent]

There is a empty small lot next to our vacation home (lake front), the lot is so small that the owner cannot build a house.
The owner of the lot was the previous owner of our house and before we bought the house we heard that he wanted to sell, therefore as soon as we bought the house, we approached him to see whether we could buy the lot, but he doubled the price of the land and we decided not to buy.

I think he saw the value of the lot because it can be used as a pathway for a new owner to go to the lake, or docks a boat, but as we have the house, hence we do not really need the small lot. However, what bugs me was that when he clear the house for us to move it, he dumped those trash to the lot and covered it with a tarp, it does not smell or anything, and those are mainly wood, or metal... However, it became an eyesore. For the few years we have the house, he only showed up once, obviously it does not bother him, I don't think he tries to annoy us or tries to get us to buy the lot, and he is just lazy...
My questions are
a. Short of cleaning it for him, is there anything that I can do? ( I don't know where he lives, and I don't think he cares as we have been cutting grasses for that lot). Can I report to the town?
b. will the wood or metal cause any health issue? or are there anything that I should be concerned?

thank you.

[ansky]

Originally Posted by NPparent

There is a empty small lot next to our vacation home (lake front), the lot is so small that the owner cannot build a house.
The owner of the lot was the previous owner of our house and before we bought the house we heard that he wanted to sell, therefore as soon as we bought the house, we approached him to see whether we could buy the lot, but he doubled the price of the land and we decided not to buy.

I think he saw the value of the lot because it can be used as a pathway for a new owner to go to the lake, or docks a boat, but as we have the house, hence we do not really need the small lot. However, what bugs me was that when he clear the house for us to move it, he dumped those trash to the lot and covered it with a tarp, it does not smell or anything, and those are mainly wood, or metal... However, it became an eyesore. For the few years we have the house, he only showed up once, obviously it does not bother him, I don't think he tries to annoy us or tries to get us to buy the lot, and he is just lazy...
My questions are
a. Short of cleaning it for him, is there anything that I can do? ( I don't know where he lives, and I don't think he cares as we have been cutting grasses for that lot). Can I report to the town?
b. will the wood or metal cause any health issue? or are there anything that I should be concerned?

thank you.

Cleaning it for him? You can't just go onto someone's property and remove stuff. If it's a lot of wood and metal he probably doesn't want to pay to have it removed. What I would suggest doing is calling the town and report it as "blighted property". I did this a few years ago when there was a foreclosed home on my street. Garbage and debris started to accumulate in the front yard of the home and it looked terrible. I reported it to the town and within a week someone came by to clean it up.

[Retriever]

Originally Posted by ansky

Cleaning it for him? You can't just go onto someone's property and remove stuff. If it's a lot of wood and metal he probably doesn't want to pay to have it removed. What I would suggest doing is calling the town and report it as "blighted property". I did this a few years ago when there was a foreclosed home on my street. Garbage and debris started to accumulate in the front yard of the home and it looked terrible. I reported it to the town and within a week someone came by to clean it up.

Yup!
The municipality's Code Enforcement people will take a look and will probably order the OP's neighbor to clean-up the property.

[NPparent]

thanks. Don't know about this...Will try, but it is not in the front yard as it is in the middle of the property and people can't really see it from the street

[Kthnry]

Agree about reporting it to code enforcement. Tell them you think there are rats breeding there.