Cleveland homeowner: Overgrown trees from vacant lot destroying property

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - A Cleveland man told the 19 Troubleshooters he is dealing with overgrown trees from a vacant lot that are destroying his property, causing power outages, and becoming a safety concern.

Eric Jones has had enough of the overgrown trees in the vacant lot next door and the damage they’ve caused.

His family has lived in their East 130th home since 1974. While he takes a lot of pride in where he lives, he says its never looked worse.

“The branches is laying on the roof of the garage. and by them branches being on the roof of the garage, it makes the garage leak and sink in from the moist and the mildew,” said Jones.

On top of the damage to his garage, he says tree limbs hang over his car and wire lines, leading to power outages.

And then there’s the safety concerns.

“These days they dumping bodies in abandoned houses, backyards, bushes, weeds, and no telling what could be back there one day,” said Jones. “Kids go to school, they walk passed, somebody could snatch them and pull them back there and hurt them. It’s kind of scary.”

Scary enough, Jones says he’s called the city countless times to get them out to take care of the lot, but he hasn’t seen any changes.

That’s why he called the 19 Troubleshooters, and we got to work.

We found out the city did come out to inspect the trees in the vacant lot back in February.

They have a work order to prune at least one of them, and they’ve got just under a month to do it.

We also discovered the city owns that lot, so it’s their responsibility to take care of it.

The city says they’ll send another crew out to the vacant lot to cut the grass and inspect for any other needed repairs.

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