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Hernando Today

Watching The Grass Grow

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By Tony Marrero

Hernando Today

Published: August 22, 2008

Spring Hill - Richie Dellasso has had it up to here with the property across the street from his house.

In fact, up to more than six feet, or about the height of the weeds growing around the vacant home at the end of Venice Drive, a short, dead-end street in a neighborhood of well-manicured homes a few blocks south of Landover Boulevard.

"Look at this," Dellasso said Thursday, motioning to the jungle-like conditions that have outgrown him. "I shouldn't have to live like this."

Two trash cans sit overflowing in front of the garage of the Florida rancher. Four bald tires are piled next to them. Dellasso said he's seen rats scurrying and snakes slithering about the home that is in the foreclosure process and been vacant for some eight months. He says he's been calling code enforcement since January hoping the county will come mow the property.

"When is something going to be done?" he said. "I don't think I should have to wait any longer."

Dellasso is among an untold number of county residents exasperated by the unkempt conditions of vacant homes in their neighborhoods.

Due to the housing and mortgage crisis, foreclosures in the county have skyrocketed during the last year. As hundreds of homes sit empty, warnings from code enforcement sent over several weeks go unanswered and the grass keeps growing.

In January, at the behest of the county commission, code enforcement stopped mowing the lawns of homes in foreclosure because the county often doesn't recoup the cost. Code enforcement pays a lawn contractor $35 for each job up to a quarter of an acre. But administrative and inspection costs run many times that, so the county could charge a property owner as much as $400 for one mow job, said interim Director Mark Caskie.

In foreclosure cases, those charges usually wind up as a lien on the property. Often, because the lien takes a back seat to other creditors, the county rarely sees the money, Caskie said.

Nevertheless, the commission reversed its decision Tuesday citing concerns about the health of residents and property values. The board authorized a budget amendment another $5,000 for code enforcement to spend on nuisance properties, including vacant ones. That added to the $2,000 the department already had set aside for the purpose.

When stories about the decision appeared in local newspapers Wednesday, code enforcement's switchboard lit up with calls from residents wondering when workers would get out to the wild properties on their block, Caskie said.

Relief is on the way for many, but it may take a while, he said.

"I'm sure everyone who has one of these properties next door to them thinks theirs is the worst," Caskie said. "I respect that, but it's not necessarily going to weigh in on the decision made."

There were more than 130 properties on a list of properties with code violations that code enforcement wants to get to, and "easily a hundred" of those are overgrown lawns, Caskie said.

The order that complaints have come in over the past few months will factor in which lawns are addressed first, but Caskie said he also must consider geography in the process so the contractor can tackle several in one concentrated area.

"I'm trying to do it logically and efficiently so I can get them done," Caskie said.

He was slated to meet with the lawn care contractor today to see just how many additional jobs he can take on. Wiley Toler, the Brooksville lawn care contractor hired by the county, says he's ready.

"Once they give me the list and the approval for the jobs, I'm going to get right on them," Toler said.

Mowing such tall grass is usually tough on man and machine, he said. For the really high grass, Toler uses a tractor and bush hog.

He walks a property first and finds everything from "tree limbs to bottles to pieces of concrete" lurking in the grass. Despite that, he still often hears the dreaded crunch of metal mower blade against foreign object.

Toler said he often runs into something else on county jobs: grateful neighbors.

"It's an eyesore for them, so a lot of people are very pleased something is being done," he said.

Dellasso, the Venice Drive resident, says he hopes to be one of them soon.

"They can do it with napalm for all I care," he said. "Just get it done."

Reporter Tony Marrero can be contacted at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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