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Tackling Nuisance Properties in Your Neighborhood

By Mara W. Elliott

08/05/2021
in City Attorney News, Feature, Featured, Features
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Tackling Nuisance Properties in Your Neighborhood
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Safe and healthy neighborhoods benefit all of us. And when even one property is allowed to deteriorate, we are all imperiled by the hazards it creates: Yards piled high with flammable junk, festering pools of stagnant water, infestations of rats and roaches that spill over property lines.

My office intervenes in situations where dangerous property violations persist, and inspections and warnings by police, fire marshals, and City Code Enforcement inspectors are ignored. We provide relief to the neighborhood, and help the occupant obtain resources that may be necessary to address drug addiction, hoarding behavior, and other mental illnesses.

My Office’s Nuisance Abatement Unit focuses on quality of life crimes by addressing nuisance and substandard housing properties throughout San Diego. It has successfully petitioned the court to appoint a receiver to bring 22 challenging properties into compliance.

The California Health & Safety Code authorizes the court to appoint a Health and Safety receiver when a property has substandard housing conditions and when the violations are “so extensive and of such a nature that the health and safety of residents or the public is substantially endangered.” Working under the direction of the court, the receiver is charged with cleaning up the property, relocating the occupants if necessary, and even offering them counseling or other assistance to address the underlying issues that allowed their home situation to escalate out of control.

Our Nuisance Abatement Unit has pursued Health and Safety receiverships in cases involving abandoned buildings and general public nuisances, but most involve hoarding.

Here are just some of our cases:

  • In a Pacific Beach house, piles of furniture and trash inside the home created a serious safety hazard for the occupants, which included young children. The bathroom sinks drained into buckets and water leaks caused mold throughout the structure.
  • The yard of a City Heights man was overtaken by squatters, who filled his property with junk and debris while he was busy caring for his seriously ill wife. The trespassers set fires in the canyon behind the property, endangering the entire community. Police were called to the address 117 times in three years. The homeowner had no way to evict the squatters and clean up his property.
  • An elderly couple was forced to live in their Bay Ho backyard because there was too much trash inside their home to safely enter it. They lived in a camper shell for five years, took sponge baths in the yard, and cooked on a portable camp stove. Feral cats, skunks, and possums lived alongside them in the piles of debris.
  • A University Heights home had a 20-year history of excessive junk, abandoned cars, and a strong stench from rotting food inside and out. The occupant cleaned it up twice after being contacted by authorities, but when it became a nuisance again, the court appointed a receiver to step in.
  • A man living in a house in Bay Terraces that had no working toilets or showers was collecting urine in hundreds of plastic bottles stacked in his backyard. Doors and windows were blocked by a ceiling-high accumulation of trash, creating an extreme fire hazard.

My Office does not get involved until Code Enforcement inspectors have visited a problem property repeatedly to determine the extent of the issues, and the occupants or owners are issued warnings to comply with the Health & Safety Code.

If the problems are not addressed, the City issues a legal Notice and Order to vacate and repair or demolish the property. The notice clearly identifies every violation, compliance measures, and informs the property owner that failure to comply could lead to the appointment of a receiver. By law, the property owner has a reasonable amount of time to correct the violations. The City makes every attempt to work with the property owner before seeking a receiver, which is always the last resort.

If you have a property in your area that appears to pose an extreme health and safety hazard, please contact the City’s Code Enforcement Division at 619-236-5500, the Nuisance Abatement Unit at 619-533-5655, or email CityAttorney@sandiego.gov.

Mara W. Elliott is the San Diego City Attorney

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Read our digital edition

Volume 4, Issue 9, February 2023

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AIDS Memorial Groundbreaking to be Held February 1 AIDS Memorial Groundbreaking to be Held February 10th!. For over 35 years, there has been a campaign for San Diego to join cities across North America to establish an AIDS Memorial honoring and remembering the over 8,500 men, women, and children who have died of AIDS. Read full story on the link below.

http://ow.ly/16rR50ML1EG
The Devil is alive in the United States, and it li The Devil is alive in the United States, and it lives in right wing, Republican driven state legislators. According to an article written by Matt Loffman for PBS, the Human Rights Campaign has identified 30 state legislators who proposed more than 115 bills targeting Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Non-Binary rights in their states. Everything from participation in sports to accessing medical care has been attacked. According to a poll conducted by PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist fewer than 3 in 10 people support any anti-Trans legislation, yet the Republic legislators continue to introduce and vote for all of them. It is hard to understand why these Republicans are voted into office over and over when they obviously do not reflect the wishes of their constituents. click link to read more

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What started as a personal social media project vi What started as a personal social media project via Instagram during the pandemic, Hillcrest San Diego has become a 10K subscriber resource for news, history, memes, and all things Hillcrest. We caught up with Rick Cervantes the force behind the account to get to know more about the motivation behind it, the plans for the Instagram account and the upcoming inaugural #hillcrestsandiego Honors with its reception schedule for Monday February 6 at Uptown tavern to honor local community members and organizations.
Read the full Interview on the link below
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Our community has been built on the need for resou Our community has been built on the need for resources and support, and sectors in our community have also been called to create organizations that enrich and serve their own specific needs. One such organization is the San Diego LGBTQ Coalition.  Read full article on the link below
https://lgbtqsd.news/san-diego-black-lgbtq-coalition-a-stronger-front-for-the-betterment-of-the-community/
Read all our February Issue Articles on our websit Read all our February Issue Articles on our website!
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