Like other communities in the Twin Cities area, Eagan hasn't been immune to the spike of foreclosures. Granted, it is not nearly the epidemic that has swept north Minneapolis, but one doesn't have to look very far even in the suburbs. In fact, just a few doors down from me is one such property. The previous owners, who seemed like nice enough people based on the few conversations I had with them, apparently couldn't keep up with their mortgage. After an extended and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to sell their home to get out from under their debt, they ended up getting foreclosed on. That was well over a year ago. So far this spring, the yard on that property hasn't been mowed even once, and the grass and weeds have grown completely out of control, which is strange because the yard was maintained somewhat regularly last year.
I'm sure Ang has become sick of me commenting every time we've driven or walked by that yard the last couple of weeks, "You know, I should complain to the city about that. The bank is as responsible for maintaining their own property as anyone else. Look at this! It looks like total shit." Yesterday after the drive past the waving blades of headed-out grass evoked images of a field of spring wheat, I decided that enough was enough. I used the City of Eagan's website to verify that city code was being violated, and got the email address for their Code Enforcement department. I also searched on the Dakota County website to find that the property was owned by CitiMortgage, Inc, part of Citigroup. I knew the city would have access to the same information, but I wanted to know which bank was thoughtlessly shitting up my neighborhood.
Here is the bulk of the email I wrote to the City of Eagan.
...I'm writing to you out of concern over the property at [address removed] , a rambler at the corner of [intersection removed]. This property has not been occupied for a year or more, and it does not appear that any lawn or other maintenance has been done on the property at all so far this spring. As of this morning, the grass and weeds throughout the yard still had not been cut. Not only is this an eyesore in our neighborhood, but more importantly I fear that the appearance of an unoccupied home will be a target for thieves in search of copper piping, possibly endangering the residents of nearby homes...
I hoped reminding them of the widespread rash of copper theft of late would inject a little more urgency into the matter. I sent that email just before 9 am, and shortly after noon, a city employee responded:
"...Thank you for contacting the City of Eagan to report the condition at [address removed]. We already received a complaint regarding this property, and it is being processed by Code Tech [name removed] under case number [removed]. If no response is received within a couple days, we will contract to have the lawn cut..."
In other words, they will cut the lawn and bill CitiMortgage, Inc. I wonder if this is CitiMortgage's standard operating procedure? Instead of contracting out to have the yard regularly maintained and paying people to organize that mess for all of their properties, it's probably cheaper for them to just let the neighbors get pissed off, complain, then have the city come in to do the work for them and pay the bill (I'm also willing to bet some neighbors just give in a mow it themselves). Wait a month or two, and let the cycle repeat. Pay for about 3 mows, and the summer's over.
I'm curious to see how quickly the City of Eagan will follow through on mowing over there. Particularly since I'm looking to move next spring, I'd also like to know how quickly and thoroughly other cities and suburbs around here handle this type of situation.
5 comments (leave yours):
I can assure you that this is the case with the banks. I live in the northwest metro. My neighborhood of townhomes has a 25% foreclosure rate. These are not people who are deadbeats, but, rather, people who could simply not sell their homes at $50,000 less than they owed. Consequently they also are no longer paying their association fees, I am quite sure as well that the banks that own these empty homes aren't either.
The garbage and vandalism has now brought down the value of our homes to a point where, as responsible as we all are, we can no longer keep up with the rising cost of gas and the upwards of 40% we have lost in equity of our homes.
Neither the County, who handles the foreclosures and has access to which banks own the homes (Wright County hasn't updated their website for the property information due to the abundant foreclosures every week) nor my association has responded to our complaints. I'm shocked that you at least got a response.
HP, what you are saying rings true -- we ALL are paying for this mess in one way or another. Foreclosures bring down property value for surrounding parcels, and unkempt, unsightly homes and yards bring the values down that much more.
I consider myself relatively lucky (key word being "relatively") in that I purchased my home 8 years ago. Perhaps I'll be slapped with the palm of reality come next spring when I try to sell, but as of now, even if I sold my place at a pretty steep discount from what it was worth at the peak of the market (about 65% more than I paid for it in 2000), I would still come out ahead. On the other hand, I wouldn't be putting all of the money and elbow grease into my house that I am at the moment (currently I'm completely redoing my kitchen on the cheap) to make it more attractive to potential buyers.
We could start a mow-a-thon... i'll start with my girlie bits.
Mow for the community!
This is happening in my neighborhood in North End Saint Paul, too.
The bank comes and "maintains" the house next door about 3 times per year, and always at 7:00 in the morning with really, really loud caterpillar tractors.
Indeed, while some listing brokers/agents have instituted organized maintenance procedures for their vacant listings, there are definitely still some out there who blow this part off. It's really unfortunate.
I remember calling the listing agent of a property near mine last summer about a tree in the backyard which was condemned due to disease. The agent told me that he wasn't going to do anything since the city would come and cut it down eventually.
Boy did that piss me off.
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