Property Standards?

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• Very true, Doug. Who wants to buy a house on a street like that?

• I used to work as a Municipal Enforcement OFficer in Northern Alberta, and property standards and nuisance or unsightly issues are one of the top complaints....I truly doubt any by-laws regarding property standards, garbage and nuisances has been removed.... whoever told you that was lying to you. Those by-laws are pretty much par for the course in any municipality.

• Mike/Sammy, the law is off the books. Two years ago, someone dumped garbage against my building in the alley and a by-law officer came and gave me a 10 day notice to clean it up or else be fined. I repeatedly complained to the 311 that I was ordered by city by-law enforcement in the past to clean it up and had to clean it up at my expense. Yes, I spoke to the manager at 311 weeks ago. I've spoken to a bunch of different people there and they all told me the same thing and none of them would give me a tracking number because there is no law on the books. Believe me, I've called Waste Disposal and done everything. The law is off the books. The only thing the city can do now is put you on the waiting list and the city crew will come pick it up when they have time, but landowners will not be billed for it anymore because it was an illegal dump. This morning, after complaining for the past two months, the city picked up the couch and bed, but a bunch of old tires are still lying around the alley. It seems that very few people are complaining to their councilors to bring the laws back regarding dumping. And, don't even get me started with graffitti. There's an old warehouse at the corner of McDougall and Hanna (only one block from Kennedy High School) that has been completely covered by graffitti for the past two years. The city fined them for doing nothing. They have constantly asked for adjournments with the judge and their next trial date is in a few months. Do you know what the city solicitor told me? If the case doesn't get adjourned again, they will have to pay a fine of $300. Only $300. What kind fo motivation is that after two years of looking at that "ugly" graffitti? 311 refered me to crime prevention, who referrred me to my city councilor. My city councilor couldn't do anything else than refer me to other people in the city.

• John> Indeed, the ugly came to the Airport in this case.

  That's the lovely thing about train travel -- stations were built downtown and were magnificent, surrounded by the best parts of the city. Nothing beats entering a city via the train.

  Plus, you can just walk off it and into the city.

  High speed trains now!

• David, your experience sounds a little different situation. In your case, someone dumped on your property and you are rightly angry that you are being saddled with the responsibility of cleaning it up. The by-law still exists though, you're just getting the short end of the stick. It's a rotten situation but what can anyone do? I used to get garbage dumped in what used to be a storage box on my back fence for garbage cans from the days when they did alley pickup in my area. I don't know why people would go out of the way to dump their junk there, but I fired some drywall screws through a board over that box and put an end to that.

  In the case of 311, I reported grafitti in my alley just this week and was received politely and given a reference number. The call taker forwarded the complaint to the police on my behalf as they are keeping track of these complaints and they will be sending out a crew to clean up the graffiti when time permits. I'm not sure if they'll be cleaning up sooner or later but I won't be holding my breath for the yellow truck. Next time I'm at the hardware store, some graffiti remover will be on the shopping list. :(

• David - YIKES....that is kind of scary to think that a community like Windsor would write out thier garbage/nuisance by-laws.... factory towns tend to offend in this area quite a bit.....but now that I think of it I drove past a broken in 2 couch bed on Drouillard Road for almost 2 weeks it sat partially impeding traffic and I thought it would never move.....

• i worked for the city of windsor's public works dept for nearly 30years 22 of them on garbage in all that time i never heard of one citizen being fined for littering they used to have a rule that if your property had an alley behind it it was your responsibility to keep your piece of the alley clean i questioned my boss a number of times about this and his reply was we don't like to step on people's toes