Akron residents say dozens of tires dumped at abandoned home, claim city hasn’t helped

AKRON, Ohio (WOIO) - Residents of Akron’s North Hill neighborhood reached out to 19 News for help after someone allegedly dumped dozens of tires outside an abandoned home months ago, and residents claim their complaints to the city have fallen on deaf ears.

“I came home from work one day in October, and somebody just backed into here and dumped a bunch of tires and left. And you can see there’s a tire even over there on the street where I chase kids, where somebody rolled it down the hill in the driveway and it landed over there, and has been sitting there for at least a month,” said Ken Swope, who lives a couple of houses down from the abandoned home.

Swope said no one’s lived in the home for at least five years and the property itself is in bad shape.

“It’s falling down, and I don’t even know that it’s habitable,” Swope said. “So, it’s just an eyesore here in the neighborhood.”

He said even before the tires he was worried someone might get hurt.

“Well, there’s kids back here you can see that that carport is falling over,” Swope pointed out. “Inside the garage, the whole roof is caved in and it’s just there’s all kinds of trash and stuff back there as well.”

Swope told 19 News he’s called 311 to report the tires three times since October and he even submitted a report online.

“It’s terrible,” he said. “I mean, every morning I come up, I get into my truck, I go to work, I see this pile of tires. I’ve reported it to the city numerous times with nothing, they don’t do anything.”

Swope said he and his neighbors felt like they were out of options, so he called 19 News.

“I watch 19 News all the time and I said we’re gonna call somebody and try to put light to it,” Swope said.

19 News reached out to the city of Akron, and they told us they are looking into this particular case, but a spokesperson for the city did say that Akron has a serious problem with people illegally dumping tires across the city in vacant homes and lots and that it is very expensive for the city to get rid of all the tires.

“I just hope that we can find a solution to the problem,” Swope said. “It’s not that hard you know the city of Akron could bring a truck out here and just haul this out of here.”

19 News will check back in with the city of Akron later this week.

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