By Julian Walker
Times Staff Writer
“This is a bad job,” remarked crew supervisor Algi Cuffee, as he shoveled piles of trash out of the home with a pitchfork, “but it’s nothing compared to some of the stuff we get. This trash is only waist high. We’ve been in houses where it’s up the ceiling.”
Cuffee was speaking of the refuse and debris found inside two adjacent properties on the 1100 block of Bridge St. in Oxford Circle — both owned by the same woman, according to city records — that presumably rivals the contents of most city dumps and landfills. It took the crew of four men two and a half hours just to dig their way into the house through the accumulated filth.
One property was a waist-high sea of trash including old newspapers, empty milk and juice cartons, ancient clothes that reeked of mildew and assorted trash.
Apparently, the former occupant had moved next door when the trash pile grew too dense even for her to navigate through.
The trash in that property wasn’t nearly so offensive — just piles upon piles of balled-up bags from McDonald’s and 7-Eleven strewn about the floor. But the property still had some revolting characteristics.
In the kitchen a plastic bucket had been transformed into a makeshift toilet because all of the utility services in the house had been turned off. The odor of human excrement permeated.
That’s just one example of the unseen blight that can ruin a neighborhood.
It’s been just six weeks since the anti-blight effort devised by City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski (D-6th dist.) began in the Northeast, but it is clear that the program is needed.
Those alarming examples aside, early indications are that the people are becoming aware of the program, violators are coming into compliance with city code and recurring problems are rapidly being abated by city crews.
And that’s exactly what the program is designed to do: address nuisance issues that detract from the quality of life of stable neighborhoods, said Rick Sicinski, code enforcement officer for CLIP (Community Life Improvement Program.)
The work isn’t always easy, as witnessed by a Northeast Times reporter who rode along with Sicinski last week, but it is a relief to neighbors who have to deal with such problems.
“The whole idea is to keep blight out of the Northeast, and this is the first step,” he explained. “We’re only in our infancy right now but we’ve had some early success.”
The assault on blight is a multipronged approach. CLIP combines the resources of several city agencies — the Managing Director’s Office, the Department of Licenses and Inspections and the Streets Department — to do the dirty work.
Devised by Krajewski and her staff, the CLIP program is a local extension of Mayor John Street’s ambitious Neighborhood Transformation Initiative to combat urban blight.
Two housing inspectors assigned to the CLIP unit daily travel through census tracts in Krajewski’s district looking for minor violations such as overgrown grass, trash placed outside on non-scheduled pickup days, pet droppings, stagnant swimming pool water, unregistered motor vehicles, graffiti and property maintenance issues.
Those types of violations are written up as citations and entered into a central computer system. Letters explaining the specific violations are sent to homeowners at the offending property. They are directed to rectify the problem within 10 days of receiving the letter and told that the city will do it for them if they don’t.
Folks who don’t respond to the notice will receive a bill of service for work done by the city and face fines and other financial penalties.
Fines for minor violations, such as unkempt yards, are $25 for non-compliance. Add to that the cost for city work crews to mow the grass and a 22 percent city administration fee and it can be a deterrent to continued neglect.
More serious violations, meanwhile, can bring $100 or $300 penalties, plus associated abatement and administrative costs.
In addition to patrolling neighborhoods by census tracts, CLIP officials rely on constituent complaints logged at Krajewski’s office and existing L&I violations on file.
All calls to Krajewski’s office (215-686-3444/5) are confidential, despite the wishes of some whistle blowers.
“We get calls from people all over the Northeast and it’s our job to go into the field and help them,” said Sicinski. “A lot of the complaints that come through, believe it or not, are made against people by neighbors because they don’t like the other person and they want to stick it to them. Some people even want us to tell the neighbor that it was them who called.”
Though that is a reality, Sicinski said all properties that are the subject of complaints are visually inspected for validity by a CLIP officer. If the complaint proves to be founded, a violation will be written and notice will be sent to the offending property owner.
The volume of properties CLIP officers inspect on a daily basis prohibits them from going door-to-door to explain the program.
But Sicinski has had his share of confrontations with curious residents.
“People have gotten angry and confronted us, but I think their frustration is motivated by embarrassment,” he explained. “I just tell them, ‘Look, it’s a public health and safety issue.’
“And even if they don’t like it, I can guarantee that there are twenty other people on the block who applaud us,” he added.
Sicinski, who was an L&I building inspector before he took the CLIP position, said he gauges each violation by the same standard: “The way I look at (violations) is, ‘Would I want my mother living next to this?’ ”
That approach appears to be working. Anecdotal evidence — mainly Sicinski’s observations — indicates that the majority of one-time violators have complied with CLIP citations and continue to maintain their property.
The hard data tells a similar story.
According to Deputy Managing Director Tom Conway, whose office oversees CLIP, 447 minor violations have been written by program officers since April 20. All of those problems have either been rectified by the property owner or by city crews, who were later sent a bill for services rendered.
“We’re seeing a trend toward compliance now that people realize the city is very serious about writing these violations and enforcing them,” said Conway.
The city Streets Department, meanwhile, has replaced 254 old and/or missing traffic signs, nearly 800 abandoned vehicles have been removed from Northeast streets, more than 600 water and sewer inlets have been cleaned and 1,700 pieces of graffiti have been removed.
Now some properties have such serious problems that a simple citation won’t suffice. In those cases, CLIP work crews are dispatched to immediately abate the problem.
The scope of some of those problems is so immense it is hard for CLIP officers to get a handle on.
An example is a house on the 4400 block of Aldine St. in Mayfair. Damaged by a February fire and abandoned for about four months before being sealed by city workers, the stench that lingered in the property was overpowering.
It was a mixture of feline urine, burned wood and age-old filth; the odor penetrated the aspirator masks worn by all who entered the dwelling and made their eyes water.
It was a constant nuisance to neighbors, many of whom came out of their houses last week to offer appreciation and encouragement to city workers who braved the foul odor.
But with the attention of CLIP, there is hope that the stench will be eliminated and the property salvaged to preserve the integrity of the block, said Sicinski.