East Cleveland neighbor fed up with vacant eyesore

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - A man in East Cleveland has been forced to live with a 30-year headache!

The vacant lot next to him on Potomac Avenue is a total mess.

We’re talking rats, piles of garbage, even squatters.

“Can they please hurry up and do something about this?” said Homeowner Gary Robinson.

Gary Robinson is sick of waiting for the city of East Cleveland to tear down the vacant home next door.

He’s lived next door since the early ‘90s and says it started causing him problems shortly after.

Now, nearly 30 years later, things are out of control.

“I got rodents and skunks,” said Robinson. Scared somebody will probably get a dead body in there honestly. The side doors open, the windows in the back, the roof is all caved in.”

Besides the trash dump the property’s become, and a breeding ground for rodents, Robinson says this place has become dangereous.

There are exposed live wires hanging down that robinson has to dodge.

“Spectrum said they couldn’t come because the safety and they couldn’t get to the pole with all the debris,” said Robinson.

Tired of dealing with this dump, and all the problems its caused, Robinson’s reached out to the city of East Cleveland multiple times.

Every time I call, I just get repeat or the answering machine,” said Robinson.

After getting nowhere, he called the 19 Troubleshooters.

We got straight to work.

We were able to get in touch with the building department, who told us while they didn’t have any record of complaints about this property, they’ll send an inspector out later this week.

They also mentioned the property’s listed as privately owned and they plan on contacting the owner, giving them a deadline to clean it up immediately after inspection.

If the owner doesn’t respond to the city’s request to clean this up, they say they’ll take the next steps to make sure this building’s torn down.

Copyright 2023 WOIO. All rights reserved.