Harris County clears dangerous Cloverleaf property filled with waste after year-long investigation
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- Car parts cover the road, and food, human waste, and broken equipment are strewn across the dried-up grass. And to top it off, sloppily re-wired electric lines are ready to spark at any moment.
How would you live or work next to this?
"A lot of killings, drugs. Hopefully, they'll get the place cleaned up," neighbor Frank Perez said.
Perez is talking about what county officials have deemed a dangerous nuisance property.
It's on Corpus Christi Street near Freeport Street in the Cloverleaf area of East Harris County.
Demolition started Friday as part of a program that allows county officials to place liens on privately owned properties considered public health hazards so that crews can clean them up.
"Illegal dumping, the trash, the amount of weird chemicals, the paints, we don't even know what's all in there," explained Scott Jeansonne, the director of Environmental Public Health at the Harris County Public Health Department. "It gets in the storm drains, the ditches, then it goes out into the river, into the Gulf. It becomes a harboring environment for disease carrying pests, for mosquitos, then you have the human element of the health issues. You have people in there using drugs and such."
When deputies arrived, they were surprised to find eight people inside.
According to the sheriff's office, two people were arrested on felony warrants.
Other people were sent to mental health and Veterans Affairs offices for help.
"Criminals hide in these areas," Harris County Sheriff's Office Captain James Lovett said. "Just five weeks ago, we had a homicide just down the road."
According to the Precinct 2 Commissioner's office, it takes an average of 6 to 8 months from the time an investigation into a nuisance property is opened up to demolition.
This Cloverleaf project took nearly a year to go through the legal process.
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