COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING COMMITTEE ON LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, October 20, 1999 10:00 a.m. - - - Resolution No. 990580 - a resolution authorizing the City Council's Committee on Licenses and Inspections to hold a public hearing to investigate why the Department of Licenses and Inspections is required to wait up to three months before it is permitted to effectively respond to complaints of insect and vermin infestation and adjoining residential and/or commercial property owners when Department personnel are unable to gain voluntary entry into the property. Bill No. 990495 - an ordinance amending Subcode PM of title 4 of the Philadelphia Code, entitled "The Philadelphia Property maintenance Code," by extending the emergency nuisance abatement program. Bill No. 990605 - an ordinance amending Subcode PM of Title 4 of the Philadelphia Code, entitled "The Philadelphia Property Maintenance Code," by extending the emergency nuisance abatement program to include the First Ward, the Second Ward, the 39A Ward and the 39B Ward. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN JAMES KENNEY, Chairman COUNCILMAN FRANK DI CICCO COUNCILMAN MICHAEL NUTTER COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 (215) 561-2220 I N D E X RESOLUTION NO. 990580 PAGE EDWARD MC LAUGHLIN, Comm. L & I -------- ROBERT SOLVIBLE, Dpt. Comm. L & I ------ 9 DOMINIC VERDI, Dpt. Comm. L & I -------- 9 CURELEY COLE, Law Department ----------- 15 LINDA RETTERSHOFER --------------------- 47 EDWARD RETTERSHOFER -------------------- 47 AVA SURIANI ---------------------------- 48 ELIZABETH MC KILLIP -------------------- 48 JOANNE ZELLMAN ------------------------- 72 IRWIN MC GRAW -------------------------- 72 JOHN COPELAND -------------------------- 72 MICHELE RUSSELLO ----------------------- 81 GLORIA LEWENOWSKI --------------------- 101 LYNN MERENCO -------------------------- 106 MARIAN SPIZER ------------------------- 106 ADA THOMAS ---------------------------- 113 MS. SIMS ------------------------------ 113 CARMEN WAX ---------------------------- 117 DOREEN SPELTS ------------------------- 119 SALVATORE REGERIO --------------------- 126 BILL NO. 990495 and 990605 OTIS HAGLER, JR., L & I ---------------- 136 - - - 3 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is the City Council Committee on Licenses and Inspections. We have three issues to deal with today. First is the resolution which a predominate number of people are here to discuss and then we have two ordinance which can not be heard until we obtain a quorum. A quorum means that there are seven members on the committee, and we need at least four members of the committee present in order to do any business. There will be not be any vote on the resolution, so there's no need for a quorum to start. We're going to get started because we know you've taken time off from your work and your home to come in here today. With me is Council Member DiCicco. And we have some other Council people who are coming. Once they come, we'll have an opportunity to deal with he ordinances, but in the mean time we want to get started on the resolution, which I'm going to read for the record. This is Resolution No. 990580 which is a resolution authorizing the City Council's Committee on Licenses and Inspections to hold a public hearing to investigate why the Department of Licenses and Inspections is required to wait up to three months 4 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 before it is permitted to effectively respond to complaints of insect and vermin infestation and adjoining residential and/or commercial property owners when Department personnel are unable to gain voluntary entry into the property. For the record, this hearing, this resolution came about as a result of many, many complaints which we received from people throughout every neighborhood in Philadelphia about the situation that exists when their neighbors are not acting in an appropriate manner as it relates to the health and safety issues in their own home. We have come across instances where because of issues of incompetence or age, because of issues of drug abuse and other substance abuse, or simply because of the issue of just not being a very responsible neighbor, people have allowed their homes to deteriorate to the point where bugs and other vermin, trash and other problems that emanate from that house begin to spread to the adjoining properties. Those adjoining homeowners take under their own expense to have their homes fumigated, to have their homes exterminated to try to keep the place clean, but as time goes on, the problem gets so unbearable that it 5 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 begins to now to spread not only to the adjoining properties, but the properties along the street, at which time people start making life decisions on whether or not they want to remain in the City and start looking for places to move and to put their houses up for sale. The frustration that I have run into in trying to deal with these, and I know Councilman DiCicco as a district council member, in trying to deal with these problems seem to be a whole deal of confusion between what L & I is responsible for doing, what civil rights and individual protections people who are in that circumstance have, what the court's involvement is, what the Law Department has advised L & I they can or cannot do. And what we wind up with is somewhat of bureaucratic confusion. We have a problem that's evident. From my perception, if a person's house is infested with roaches or mice, if there's a broken sewer pipe in the basement where sewage is pouring into the basement, if there are other types of health and safety issues that are affecting a single property that now effect the properties around them, I believe we have the responsibility as a City to go 6 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 in there as soon as possible, not to arrest the individual resident, not to give them any problems, but to simply abate the problem because many of the people who are involved in the situation may be elderly or mentally ill or other issues that they're not able to deal with these properties themselves.
We are simply looking for the most expeditious way in which to enter the property, deal with the problem and stop it from spreading to other houses. Part of the reason why there are residents here today is to give us some indication for the record as to the horror stories that some of these people have gone through and the length of time it has taken to really get this problem resolved. In the meantime, I have other instances where people have basically just simply moved. It took so long to solve the problem, that even once it was solved, the young couple or the family on the street decided that they were going to go live somewhere else. This is not an attack on L & I. I think Licenses and Inspections, I call it the agency of last resort. Everything that gets legislated in 7 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 this Body winds up at some point in time in the lap of Licenses and Inspections, whether it is issues like this or issues of illegal sales, nuisance business, all kinds of issues that they deal with every day. Their staff is stretched to the limit. They do their best to respond. I think they are frustrated as we are in the length of time it takes to work this system through, the initial notification to the owner, the attempt to gain entry, writing up the property to go into court, getting a court hearing, having a judge make a decision on what they should do. And all during the course of this, time keeps on ticking away. The roaches and bugs keep on expanding, the trash keeps piling up, and the neighbors get continually more frustrated. What we want to try to do today is to develop a record that we can issue a report and hopefully with the help of L & I, the help of the Law Department, and maybe the help of the court system and the state legislature if necessary, streamline this process so that when this issue is discovered, within three, four five days we can get these people in there and get this stuff dealt with 8 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 and then hopefully get the people some of the help they need, whether it's mental help, whether it's physical, emotional, or psychological or substance abuse help to try to keep this problem from coming back again. There are issues that I've had where we've had people -- where we actually got the exterminator into the house voluntarily, and then six months later we're back in the same situation again because the person is simply incapable of keeping that home anymore. So what I'd like to do now is ask the representatives from L & I, we have Commissioner McLaughlin, Deputy Commissioner Solvible, and Deputy Commissioner Verdi here, and they can come up as a panel and kind of, based on the framework that I've laid out so far, to kind of talk about the issues, the process they go through now, some of the things that they've recommended to change that process, and some of the obstacles that they meet every day. So I'd like you to please come to the table. After that, we will be calling the list of witnesses to have people come in and make sure the record is clear how serious this problem is and 9 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 how frustrating it is to deal with this kind of problem every day. Identify yourself for the record.
First Deputy Commissioner Robert Solvible, Licenses and Inspections.
Good morning. Good morning, Councilman Kenney, Councilman DiCicco. I would like to start off by saying that since I've been the Commissioner, I took over in May of this year, yourself, Councilman DiCicco, Council President Verna have given me a crash course in just how serious this issue is. So thanks to you folks who are reading this to the top of the organization and letting my management team look at it and try to do a better job at addressing this problem. I think the first problem I'd like to talk about is the actual articulation of the complaint. It seems to me that when we look at the 10 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 number of abatements that we have done in fiscal year 1999, we have abatements that we did. Now, 4 I think in looking at them versus looking at the 5 routine complaints that come into the system and go 6 to the housing unit, I think the disparity there in 7 how they're handled is the articulation of the 8 complaint. People are calling up and saying, 9 "There's bugs in my neighbor's house next door," and 10 the inspector in Housing goes out and issues a 11 violation and it either gets complied or doesn't and 12 ends up on a track to Municipal Court. Municipal 13 Court is a lengthy process, and that's where most of 14 the complaints come in. Now, when a complaint gets articulated in a strong fashion, usually coming through the Council Person's office, then we get to transfer that to a contractual services type unit where we can actually call and actually hire an abatement specialist to come in and address those problems. Now, what happens in that case, usually the worst cases, we run into the problem of people saying, "Well, you can't come in." We are required by federal law, the Fourth Amendment, to give people due process. That means that we can't just come in 11 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 and knock down your door. We've taken those cases where we can identify those serious cases, we've taken them and we put them on a track with seriously dangerous buildings and we've taken them into Equity Court. Now, the problem with Equity Court is that we do have all those dangerous buildings in there. We do have all those other serious dangerous situations in the community in line to get into that system. So that that is about two weeks versus about three months in Municipal Court. Municipal Court, usually the case there is people, if they show up, they get fined. We go the Equity Court track and then we get ordered to abate the situation. So we have a lot more leeway in that respect. Where we have addressed those problems through abatement, through working closely with the Health Department, I think we've been successful. The attention that we had given this has caused Deputy Commissioner Verdi to adopt a new procedure for handling this. I'd like him to talk about that. What I'd like to say is that I've met John Domzalski, the chief of staff of the Health Department. John is making available to us a team 12 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 of people who are specialists in negotiating with people who will not let them in, and he has offered that service to us at L & I. So we can now trigger those specialists to help us talk to those people instead of having to go to court system to gain entry. Just to say that gaining entry isn't any magical thing that happens in court. We have to coordinate the Sheriff, a locksmith, we have to pay a locksmith to go there and we have to coordinate the inspection and the exterminator. So that's a bit of a project also just to get in. So it's a benefit to us to be able to trigger this Health Department team to talk people into letting us in.
Let me ask you a question relative to this due process issue, because I think it's very important that we protect people's civil rights and also try to weigh that against what's exactly going on in the property. In the event that the police were of the impression, for example, that a person had stored in their basement explosive material, large amounts of gasoline, weapons, guns, whatever -- and people have been known in cities and outside the city to kind of do that thing. What would be the process for entry into the house to, 13 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 first of all, find out whether or not that was in fact true and then take whatever precautions necessary to keep the street from blowing up?
I think it's the articulation of the problem, again, that's the answer to that question, that if there is real good solid probable cause that exists in that house, then you go through the door and you go in and you abate it and you worry about answering your due process requirements later. It's the protection of the people that comes first.
See, part of the concern that I have is I guess an issue of practicality and an issue of what actually the problem is. I believe -- this my own opinion and I'm not a lawyer. I'm glad at the table is Mr. Cureley Cole who is with the Law Department who has dealt with these issues probably more in particular. He is kind of the nuisance guy over at the Law Department. He's not nuisance. He deals with the nuisances. I guess the issue is, is not the largest infestation of insects, rodent, sewage, other types of problems as serious a health risk or safety risk as explosives, for example? 14 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 If someone's sewer pipe is broken and the sewage is flowing into the basement, is that not a -- not equal, but a similar safety and health risk as someone who may be storing gasoline in their basement? And where do we make the division? Where do we say this is not as serious as this is? And Cureley, please feel free to jump in from a legal perspective whenever you feel it appropriate.
In the instance of sewer pipes, we have a route to abate that situation from outside the property. The problem with the infestation, Councilman ,is the fact that we can't get inside the property. There is a very big health hazard with a broken sewer pipe.
We contact our plumbing inspector who will contact the Water Department and if we show them that that pipe is broken, we can have the water turned off immediately. So that's where it differs in severity.
And I think another difference is, using the explosives, they're 15 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 creating a catastrophe which apparently has a higher degree. I always equate it to like if there's a fire on the property, the fire department can legally kick in the door and go in. We can't. Cureley can probably expand on that better.
Let me just add to the question then and then you can maybe answer it. We can't because of court precedent and court ruling that says in a specific instance -- if your wall is moving with roaches and it's not coming from your house, is there some court case that says you can't go in there for that reason?
If we can identify a situation where there is a substantial serious significant threat to public safety, we can exercise our police power and do what is necessary to take care of that problem. What we have to be able to do, though, however, is to be able to coordinate the serious and substantial threat to public safety, because if there is a substantial threat to public safety, our police power immediately kicks in; we can do that. And then somebody else can come and say, "Oh, well maybe you shouldn't have done that." But we can do that. 16 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
In the situation where -- given the explosive example, that individual would be subject to arrest. In the situation where the individual lives in the house who is storing this contraband explosive material would be subject potentially, I would think, to arrest because of that person's risking a catastrophe and whatever other possession of contraband material, whatever the changes would be. I think the police power issue and the concern of due process has to do with the fact that person could be arrested and their liberty taken away. In a situation where we're not looking to arrest the person in the house, we're simply looking to get to the root of the problem to solve the problem, we're not taking anybody out in handcuffs, we're not arresting anyone in the house, if we have a 95-year-old lady who saves pizza boxes and has been doing it for 20 years, we're not looking to arrest her for that. What we're looking to do is to gain entry into house as soon as possible for her safety and for the health and safety for the people around her.
We're not going to arrest the 17 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 95-year-old lady who has pizza boxes. What we have to do is -- we do have her to give her due process. And the Department of Licenses and Inspections through the Law Department can ask us to get a court order to get into the house as quickly as possible. And we have a system in place now, we have a system in place now with the Department Licenses and Inspections where -- and I think we did this yesterday, Bob. Where they asked us to get into a property. We can do that in a matter of days. And we've actually begun to do that.
The falling building type situation, Councilman, we can go to emergency court without the owner on a Sunday night, Friday night, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and ask for a court order to remove the occupants and/or demolish the building. And then that channeled that way, but that has to be the extreme. And not saying that this isn't a serious problem, because it is. You can't make everybody become an emergency because then the system that where you can get a court order maybe in two weeks -- or a court date, not an order -- breaks down and everything is an emergency. And then it still goes back to its normal time. I think 18 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 the normal processing time is at least several weeks.
Can I make a point here? I think I'd like to put Dominic on for his policy because that changes a lot of what we're talking about.
Let me recognize Councilman DiCicco. I think he has a question.
We're going in that direction. Picking up on what Mr. Cole said, substantial, what is substantial? What brings us to the level? Is it an individual judgment call out there? Who makes that call? And I understand what you're saying, Bob.
We can get calls from people day in and day out and everyone seems to think that it's a serious problem. Who makes the determination what is serious? How do we reach that point?
Councilman, I think it starts with the complain and giving a call to our intake person in services and operations, how they 19 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 explain the seriousness of the problem. Simply to say, "Well, there's some roaches coming in my house," if you hear it times a day, that's a 5 routine thing to that intake person. Whereas, to 6 say there's thousands of vermin or roaches coming 7 through my walls, my walls are moving. So it starts 8 there. And then the other part of the problem, as 9 Dominic will get to, is us getting access to write 10 the violation to solve that problem. 11
What frightens me in that 12 regard is that Councilman DiCicco's question, our 13 offices deal with -- I may deal with three or four 14 or five properties a week. How many properties are 15 involved where people don't call here, don't call 16 me, don't call him, don't call Rizzo and are calling 17 a normal process of 1776 connecting to L & I? How 18 many of those people are suffering internally before 19 it gets to the point where one of us get involved or 20 you guys go out and take a look at it? I guess the issue is on, not only of health and safety, but of economic development. You know, at some point in time I am sure we have lost virtually hundreds of families that never called a Council Person's office and becomes so frustrated 20 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 with the system that they basically just moved out or left their property. That's, I think, what my overall concern is, how many people are we souring on the city because of our concerns over due process and maintaining this two-week waiting period for the court to give us a date. I've been in court cases with Cureley when the Judge says, after two months or three months of going through this, the judge who is not experienced in this problem him or herself says, "We'll give you another days to take care 12 of that problem," and you walk out of there, people 13 shaking their heads saying, "This is insanity." 14
It is those cases that 15 we're talking about and it is those cases that we've created policy for. The cases that come through your office and the office of Councilman Rizzo, Councilman DiCicco, Councilwoman Verna, those cases get handled because they get articulated by your staff in the correct way that rises the level of severity, let's us take contract and services type action. But what Dominic has done is put a policy in place that addresses just what you're talking about, the person who calls to our intake and a normal complaint gets generated. I'd like Dominic 21 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 to explain the policy.
Councilman Rizzo had a question, but I think he'll wait until you at least articulate that policy change and then we'll recognize Councilman Rizzo.
Basically, it's a policy that states, we gave the inspectors -- this was based upon a procedure that was done by Deputy Commissioner Solvible about three years. We basically just stepped up the numbers and used partly more of our enforcement efforts towards adjacent properties. It reads as follows: All violators or all violations, for example, clean up or exterminator work will be given a five-day notice with A10 A20 message which are administrative orders explaining that the city has the right to abate. So when the owner gets this violation, he understands that if it's not complied, we have the right to go into court and abate. If not going to court, we have the right to abate. The inspectors will inspect adjacent houses to help determine the source. The inspectors are instructed if they get an address, they're to inspect the adjoining properties. If they can not 22 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 gain entrance to the property that was the complaint to try to locate the source to make sure that that house that was complained about would be the one that has the source. If unable to gain entrance to a location, the inspector will write violations based on inspection of adjacent properties. The inspector more or less goes to one property and finds the to the right of the left there's infestation problems. It should indicate to him that that infestation was based upon the house that was made a complaint on. They're able to write the violations. So that gives us a violation without gaining entry. If not complied, an owner-occupied immediate entry request will be made for abatement and permanent injunction to keep the location clean. And the fifth part of this would be if tenant-occupied, both owner and tenant can be cited abatement request if tenant or owner refused abatement and/or entry. The same procedure will be followed. Basically, what it's stating is, getting back to Mr. Cole's statement, that if we find that we can't gain entry either through the tenant or the 23 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 owner, we're contacting the Law Department and request a immediate abatement. In reference to the severity of the problem, our inspectors are the key people that are going to tell us that. They've been in enough properties to know that if you see one or two bugs on a front window of a house, it may not be a major problem until they get inside the property. But when they can view a major amount or some infestation on adjoining properties, they know then that middle property is a problem.
Also, Councilman, I think that you have to understand that as a department, we write approximately a hundred thousand orders, violations a year. Only 20,000 go to court. The majority of people when they get a violation do comply. We're dealing with the people who just don't give a darn or mental illness is involved.
Just as a side note to this. There are two other tools that we now have that we're using in Housing or are being ready to be used in Housing. One is recently Council passed a CVN ordinance which with a code violation notice we can start using that dollar amount now to go after 24 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 owners and tenants and start issuing tickets along with any enforcement action. The second thing is to cut down on support time. We just initiated an administrative hearing process in Housing where we can try to bring the owner in to us before we have to actually wait the time to get him into court if the situation is not that severe. So that's relatively new to Housing. It's been used in business compliance successfully and in commercial industrial units successfully. So at this point we're about two weeks away from starting that procedure in Housing.
Does the emergency nuisance abatement program, does that give you leverage? Does that help in any way?
I think that emergency nuisance abatement program, if I'm not mistaken, Ernest told me that that is the Vacant Property Review Committee and the council district being able to take a -- donate a home to the city.
That is when the property has being neglected. But in this case, I guess we can interpret these properties to be neglected properties either by the owner who is 25 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 residing in it or an owner who just left the property vacant. Does this give us any additional leverage or authority to get in there?
I think the code that we have now gives us all the power we need to write it. Where our problem is, is just the concept of forcing entry. A lot of times, too -- and it brings up a case that I talked with Councilman Kenney on, where the neighbors don't complain right away because they know the lady and they feel sorry for her, and then it gets to the point where it's out of control and they complain to us and we didn't get it at an early point in time. That's critical, too.
One of the things that I want to say, having done these cases for so long, is that I don't want to seem to be completely overprotective of my client, the Department of Licenses and Inspections, but I am protective of my client.
Part of the problem that we have is it's a human problem, and that is that we could go in, abate a property with roaches, and six RESOLUTION NO. 990580 weeks later, two months later, you've got the same problem. What do you do about these people? And the neighbors, as Bob said, the neighbors don't really -- we can't go out and murder people, we can't kill people. We can exterminate bugs, but we can't exterminate the people. And that really is part of our frustration, L & I's frustration, the Law Department's frustration, your frustration. We're dealing with these kind of problems. We have these people who are what we call collectors and bug people and we have pigeon ladies, and these people, what do you we do about them? In my transition report, one of the things that I talk about is how do you solve an unsolvable problem? And I think that's part of this whole process that we're going through right now, is how do we deal with that. Yeah, we can get them to court, we can get court orders, we can abate. But six months later, you're going to have the same problem again. What do you do about that?
I want to go back and talk about that. Go ahead, Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you. I'd like to go back to process. Maybe you've covered this, 27 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 but I'd appreciate you just taking a minute. Councilman Kenney referred to as a constituent calling 686-1776, but they really don't know where to go. I can I understand that they don't know who deals with this specific area. Are you aware of how the municipal switch board -- if I called up and said, "I'm living next to a location that is creating a problem at my home," what does the municipal switchboard do with that call?
They transfer it to 686-2463 which is our Services and Operations line. We meet with them and we have a dialog with 1776.
Is that the most efficient way? Should it go to the Health Department first? Should it come to L & I? Who actually does the inspection, L & I or the Health Department?
Councilman, in a residential property -- I'm not sure if we do a commercial property. Dominic? We do commercial.
So in other words, 28 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 anyone calling the municipal switchboard would get transferred to that line and that's where the process begins?
Now, let's talk about the problem itself. L & I doesn't deal with the problem other than make physical inspection and make a recommendation to the Health Department. Or do you actually have people go out there and spray bug spray?
We send an inspector. The inspector writes a violation against the owner to comply to remove the infestation. The inspector will re-inspect, and if it's not complied with or the work not done by the owner, we'll refer it to, under our procedure, to the Enforcement Unit which then will get it to Mr. Cole's hand for a court order. Again, as I said, that's about 20 percent of the cases. 80 percent, the owners and/or tenants comply with the violation.
What's the length of time on average that that process, the 20 percent takes to the ultimate abatement? 29 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
It depends, but to ultimate abatement, probably two to three months for the system to work.
The crux of what we're here for, I think, is that percent of how many? 7 What's that come to? 8
Last year we did 14. So 9 let's say we received about a hundred complaints 10 regarding infestation and we had to abate ourselves 11 14 locations. 12
That seems like a low 13 number. I think I've got a hundred of them in my 14 office. 15
Just to clarify two things. 17 One, Councilman DiCicco mentioned, I think he 18 touched on vacant properties. Some of the 19 infestation complaints do come from vacate 20 properties and that is the major source of infestation on mice and roaches. They are not in the system as infestation problems. They're always put in a vacant building. When we do abate that vacant building, then, yes, we do call the Health Department. Vector Control works with us very 30 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 closely in abating that situation. So that's the answer to both questions. One is we may only get a hundred calls for infestation directly, but a majority of the calls come in as vacant buildings with infestation and then we have to abate that.
So the hundred coded infestation calls are generally occupied properties?
We do not code vacant buildings. We do not need a court order to get in a vacant building. And we have a relationship with Vector Control to abate for rat and fleas and things when our workers find them.
Keeping in mind that there may be thousands of calls go through the regular system, they get violations that get complied that if they don't comply, it still may go into the Common Pleas court system. What Bob is talking about is his experience, his responsibility. He keeps track of services. He actually schedules the abatement of those.
I want to finish up. 31 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 So I understand the role of L & I versus Vector Control, Health Department. You are never involved in any actually extermination of insects, rats, or mice, you don't deal with any of that? You just do the administrative part of that process?
We deal with -- let's take if a waste pipe in the house is open in a vacant building and rats coming out there, we would deal with that. Rat control abated, we would have to make the actual repair on the soil pipe that had the hole in it.
Now, in reference to dealing with the problem. If you have a situation where you can't get access to a property. Now, I recollect reading that certain insects, certain roaches, certain rats, certain mice can be exterminated without actually gaining access to the property. There are some insects that will take a bait, take it back to the nest, and the other insects will eat that bait and they die. Do we understand what Vector Control does? Would they make an effort -- my point, obviously, the ideal situation would be to gain access to the property. But I hope if we're up against it and we're not able 32 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 to gain access that there's a plan B where we bait in other ways to at least try to lessen the problem if not eliminate it. Are there technics out there in extermination that we can hopefully deal with a problem that confronts us where we can't gain access?
Again, we'll call the Health Department and refer to their expertise in that matter. We won't take any action on our own. We don't have the capabilities to exterminate. If there's a rat infestation problem or any type of rodent, we contact the Health Department and give them an address that we can't gain entrance. They may bait the adjoining properties, the sewers, the streets in that area and vacant lots, which mostly this is where this is coming from. But to do anything to that property, normally my experience with the Health Department, this is something you have to deal with them directly is that they will not touch a property unless we gain entrance for them.
Also Councilman, on Agate Street -- I forget the hundred. Prior to us getting in on a Friday, a week before that, we abated the 33 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 adjacent houses, so we do do that. But usually when you have a roach source, that's because there's food in the house that they're eating on, unless you can remove that food source, the abatement -- you're still going to have roaches. You've got to clean the property out. It took about -- the commissioner and myself were at that property on a Friday about three weeks ago. It took about four trash loads, trucks to be filled to remove all the debris from that house. And when the Health Department bombed it, we still had roaches coming out.
This is the nitty-gritty of city government. We deal with a lot of issues in this Council. We will probably be dealing with stadiums and bond issues and other things, but this is the real nitty-gritty of city life that -- and I appreciate all your candor and all your cooperation and interest because I think you know if you've lived in a neighborhood or you grew up in a neighborhood what this can mean to people's mental and physical existence to have to deal with this kind of problem. Councilman? 34 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 Cureley, you look as if you had else something you wanted to say.
It's interesting especially in some of our neighborhoods when the kids realize that a cat looks different than what they saw running across the street when it winds up being a rat.
Well, one of the things I wanted to say is that in the Law Department, now that the code enforcement unit is fully is staffed, and I talked to Commissioner McLaughlin about this, is to have a task force with the Department of Licenses and Inspections, with the Health Department deal with these kind of issues. Because, as I said before, it's not really just an L & I problem. It's not a Law Department problem. It's not just a Council problem. It is a problem where we have to deal with these kind of social issues. And what do you do about the person who -- I have a case that's been going on for eight years now. This woman feeds pigeons. Now, how do you get rid of that problem? Well, we can't kill her. I mean, and we don't necessarily want to kill the pigeons. But we have to figure out how to deal with the fact that she is 35 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 making her neighbors crazy by feeding these pigeons all the time.
Not to get into specifics, names, addresses, that kind of thing, but in this particular instance, eight years, is this individual alone?
At some point in time, does not the City have a process or a responsibility to move against the person in a legal way that apparently -- I mean, if she's not listening to requests, she's not listening to citations, she's not listening to the court. At some point in time, doesn't that person need to be removed from that property and placed in a facility that will give her the help that she needs? And I'm not saying that that facility needs to be a prison. Obviously, that person is a danger in a health way to neighbors and to herself. What is our responsibility as a City to begin to move those people out of that property? 36 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
That's one of the reason we want to have a task force because we have to talk about that. We need to think about that. She does have certain rights. There really is a fine line between is she really a substantial threat to public safety.
She may be a substantial threat to public health, which is of course is individual safety. Not to interrupt you. We wind up in this kind of gray area. What rises to the level, not only just nuisance, but what rises to the level of public health threat and therefore translates in my mind to an issue of public safety threat?
That's why I think that a hearing such as this isn't something that you need to blow off. You need to think about these kinds of things. And I'm glad we're having this hearing because these are real issues. They're real gray, especially from a legal point of view.
But I guess the question is, have we ever been -- you probably won't be able to answer this unless you do some research. Have we ever been sued in federal court or in state court 37 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 for the violation of an individual's civil rights relative to moving into a mentally ill person's property, into a person who is using drugs, to abate a problem? I can't imagine a federal judge looking at all that -- again, just supposition. Looking at all the eight years worth of disgust and pain and misery of the neighbors and this individual's seemingly instability in her threat to her own safety, some federal judge is going to say this city acted improperly by not allowing that woman or that man to continue on that way and disrupting the neighbors' peace and safety and health and their own, that somehow the city is this bogeyman because we went in and solved that problem for this person. I'll just give you just one anecdote. We had a guy in South Philly not too long ago, he was a pizza box collector. He saved pizza boxes for years and years and years. It was bugs and all kinds of things. Finally, they went into the house, there were a number of programs he was able to get his kitchen cabinets replaced, he was able to get his floor replaced. He actually had his house upgraded. And I remember Dominic saying that the guy was sitting in the chair saying, "They say I'm 38 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 crazy. You guys are all here fixing up my house for free; I think you're all crazy." So at any point in time we were able to not make him any saner but at least able to get the problem resolved for the people who are saying to us "I'm out of here. I'm not going to live with vermin crawling in my kids' bedroom. I'm out of here."
A lot of our situations, especially nuisance abatement, you're aware of a lot of nuisance issues, are relatively an issue where we work along with the Law Department. But as a side note, our inspectors will come back to me at times and say, "I think this guy is a little mentally unstable." We then have the resource to call the Health Department. Where we activate infestation cases where we know the person is living there, we know the person's house is infested, but if we can get in the Health Department at times to say that this person is not stable, fine, so we do use mental health in that nature. There are some cases where I've been in myself and seen the conditions of a house. Mental health goes in and says, he's not a threat to public safety. If he was a threat to 39 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 public safety, we would have had that to use to abate the property.
Is there a reverse situation where people who are doing outreach for mental health in the Health Department contact you guys, contact L & I and say, "Look, we've been dealing with this case here and the house is beginning to deteriorate." Is there a sharing of information?
Also not just infestation, with heat, living conditions. It's a pretty good relationship we have. Could I add one thing, Council Members? Ed and I have changed the enforcement process where before people could send work directly to Cureley, and what we have done -- Eileen Evans who is our chief of enforcement, make everything funnel through her and her Cureley now have a close working relationship, so it doesn't fall through the crack. 40 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
I don't want to get Law Department in trouble and I don't want to get L & I in trouble. Do you sense in any stage that the courts are not as responsive to the immediacy of the issue that we would like? Is it judge by judge? Is it just the process that the court goes through? Do you sense anything that we need to bring in the administrative judges in Municipal Court or Common Pleas Court to kind of work with them to try to streamline this process and kind of bring it to the height of importance that you think it deserves.
My I understanding is at some point they may be moving -- Equity Court very, very important. I don't know exactly what's happening with the court system, and that's one of the things I'd like for Council to look into. I think that they may be changing the Equity Court system that we have now, removing it to Municipal Court. If they do remove it to Municipal Court, I'm not sure it's going to get the same kind of attention.
You think Municipal Court is too busy dealing with more work than they --
Yes. I don't think it's Municipal Court. Municipal Court really isn't as 41 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 important as Equity Common Pleas Court. So I implore you to speak to the court system at this point and make certain that even if they change the Equity Court system as it exist now, to make certain that our cases from the Department of Licenses and Inspections and the Health Department get as much attention and that people understand and that we make this important now and in the future and even more so than it has been. So I'm concerned about that, and that's one of the things that I'm glad I'm here today so that I can address that issue. Because what I don't want to happen, I don't want it to happen so that our equity cases now are funneled into Municipal Court, and it's like, "Oh, yeah, well, that's L & I equity cases or the Health Department's cases," and they're not getting the attention they deserve. So it's really, really important that somebody speak to the court system to assure us that when we, the Law Department, as I said now, we're fully staffed and we're ready to go. We're real jazzed up about this, that we can give L & I cases the attention that they deserve and that we can continue to do what we've been trying to do for so long. We finally got the people that we 42 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 need, from at least from a Law Department point of view, to do what you want, what L & I wants, and what the Health Department wants, and we don't want it to fall apart because the court system is not doing what it's suppose to do.
I just want to make a point about establishing a nuisance and how that happens. This is back to the point of "I got bugs in my house" or "My walls are moving. There's bugs in my baby's cereal." It's that kind of difference. And the reason that that's important is because establishing a nuisance under law requires reports from citizens to government. And by government, I say calling the police, documenting the police -- the police document that automatically. L & I now documents. We have a brand-new system where we're documenting the number of calls we get on any one condition so that adds to the documentation, calls to Council person's office. Excuse me, gentlemen, I'm sorry to recommend that.
We'd rather hear from them or than to hear from them in Jersey.
So it's you logging the number of calls. And then at some time, and I'm 43 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 talking about the Health Department, as many different logical places to make a complaint to build a nuisance case. I'm sure Cureley would like to take that case into court. It has a lot of more substance, there's a lot more documentation of the effect of this thing on the community, plus it gives L & I, it gives our nuisance abatement task force more juice, more ability to address the problem.
I'm wondering as a result of this hearing, our discussions, that perhaps some brochure or pamphlet might not be developed to give people a step-by-step ability to -- the first reaction is one of panic and anger and not really -- you don't really think too clearly about what's going on, about what you should be documenting, writing, logging, those kinds of things. Perhaps there's some plain-speaking pamphlet or document that can be developed with Health, L & I, and Law that would allow Cureley to walk into a room in a short period of time with a decent case that will get something accomplished.
We'll add to that to our list. Right now it's a plan in the department to update and create new pamphlets for public 44 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 distribution, and we'll add that one.
May I piggyback? The City's TV channel is looking for some good things to put on that screen, so that might be a subject you might want to include on that.
I'd to get back to the pigeon issue where this one individual for eight years. What are the penalties for that type of activity?
Well, the first thing we try to do in the Law Department is we resolve the problem, we try to resolve them as humane a way as possible. Now, the judge in this case should impose some fines. We also --
Yes, she was. She was brought into court. I mean, it was a pathetic case because one of the things that we told her is that if you keep feeding the pigeons, we're going to have to kill the pigeons, at which point she almost had a heart attack. The judge imposed a fine. The judge 45 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 issued an injunction which ordered her not to feed the pigeons anymore. We sent investigators out from the Law Department to make certain that she wasn't feeding the pigeons on a continuing basis. See, what happened, here's the problem, the real deal is this, she would slip out like 4:30 in the morning and feed the pigeons. I mean, how do you deal with a situation like that? And she was doing it on the sidewalk.
Well, I have a similar problem with my neighborhood. There's a fellow about my age --
53. In South Philly, we use the word as being crazy rather loosely. My interpretation is he is rather nuts in a different way. But he is really disrupting an entire neighborhood. It is not -- some people may say that we have so many other serious problems, what's the big deal about feeding pigeons? Well, there's a waste management problem there. There's a health problem. We have one or two vacant buildings in my neighborhood, the pigeons have now taken up residence in those vacant building because they know 46 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 they're going to be fed once or twice a day at the other end of the block. And people literally can't even sit out anymore because of the droppings and other problems. So to me, it's a serious problem, it's a very serious health problem. And I was just curious as to what the penalty or penalties were. You actually can bring these folks into court then?
Yes. We bring them into court and then we do the best we can under the circumstances. Because, what do you do? I mean, how do you resolve the problem?
This fellow is really defiant. It's, "I don't care, I'm going to feed them, that's okay." It's not a question whether his mental capacity is such that he just can't determine right or wrong. He's just being very belligerent about the whole thing, so he may be your next case.
Thank you very much. What I'd like to do if possible now is -- if you can stay or the Commissioner has to go and other people can stay or someone from the Law Department kind of hang in here for a minute and I want to hear some of the people in the community. 47 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 I know there's a couple here with kids. I'd like to give you an opportunity to come up. If you're going to testify, come up first. I have a 10-year-old and a 5-year-old and they can little antsy. Is this Wilt Street? Why don't the Wilt Street people come up, and then we'll hold the tape until the end of your testimony so that they can see it when they come back. Actually, Commissioner Solvible is here. He's going stay, so what I asked that the Sergeant-at-Arms to do is to take the tape from the witness. I want to identify yourself, give your initial testimony, and then we'll show the tape to L & I. Could you please identify yourself?
My name is Edward Rettershofer. 48 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
As far as L & I was talking about due process, I'd like to know -- they were saying about three months. They have on record with Mr. Laquintano I've been calling since 1994. We have yet to get any kind of resolve here. I have letters here. I've sent letters to Councilman DiCicco, Fumo. I've been in the phone with the Mayor's Office, and even the Health Department came out. The Health Department told us that --
Could you do me a favor? Could you explain what the situation is?
Kind of explain what the address of the house where you're located.
I'm right to the left of this neighbor. Ava, she is next right next to door to me. Betty is -- okay, we're on Wilt 49 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 Street. Betty is on Memphis Street and now it's affecting her. Behind us is Berks Street. We have a public alley. The people back there are also affected, but they couldn't come because they're working and couldn't take the day off.
Different neighbors on Berks Street, which I said is right behind us, they have problems with rats. These people, we've also asked them if we could pay to exterminate. The lady told me -- now it's a 84-year-old lady. You were talking about elderly. She has her daughter who moved in with her, what, about six months ago? About six months ago her daughter who's like in her 50s, she rented a home another place in our neighborhood. The neighbors put her out because of roaches because she rented and they were able to do this. She moved in with her mother next door to us and now, I mean the roaches are unbelievable. On this tape you will see. I called all the news media. I have pictures in our neighborhood paper that we were hoping that embarrassment would do something because all the city agencies have not done anything for us. 50 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
1487 East Wilt. Let me ask you a question about your initial calls. Who did you call?
You called the switchboard and was transferred to L & I and you were talking to an individual for over a period of time?
I was working, but Ava is home, and Ava said yes, they have come out.
Could you give me some idea as to what happened when they came.
What happened was a gentleman by the name of Perez, I believe, came out. They knocked on the door for the property that's infested with the roaches. They were not allowed to 51 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 go in. They would not even open the door. In fact, what the did was when he started walking away, they brought the dogs into the house from the back yard. The dogs started barking to make the person leave. They were about to leave, they knocked on my neighbor's door and there was nobody home; it was during the week. I'm home all the time. I'm housewife.
I live right next door to Linda. They come through their fence, through their house, and is coming into my house now. In any case, the person came in. We showed them the tape which Linda has which was Channel 3 News. They came out did a story. In fact, when the gentleman was about to go down back to show on camera what was going on, a roach started climbing up his leg. That's how this problem is now. We show them the tape. The only thing all he told us he could do is pass it on to his supervisor and that he's just a clerk and he's very sorry, he would like to be able to do something, but he's not a supervisor. 52 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 We started contacting his supervisor and Linda has called a number of times. We have spoken to different people. We've got letters and everything. Still nothing has been done about it.
Betty, do you want to give some testimony about this problem? And then what we'll do is go back to L & I view the tape.
I think they have roaches like five or six years. I thought it was the people beside me. It's a rental property and new keep people coming every year. I always talk to the landlord. I wasn't too sure, but my exterminator kept saying to me it's not those people. I think it's coming from the back, from Wilt Street. He told me that those people -- one of the other neighbors on I guess the right of that person paid for extermination before in the past because he went into both homes. The woman does not do that anymore, whether she's got a new exterminator or whatever. But those people do not let anyone in. I've had them for years. I blamed them on other people until I saw this show on TV and everything my exterminator told me was true.
Let me ask a question. I 53 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 know probably none of you have been in the property, but do you have any idea as to whether or not they are considered kind of pack rat people you would say or that they bring in newspapers. I know exactly what you're going through because I moved, believe it or not, in a house I lived in prior to the house I'm in now. I moved Thanksgiving dinner brother-in-law's. The two old ladies next door had decided to save Acme bags. And apparently Acme bags are a major nesting site. And they stored the Acme bags behind the stove so that the cooking and other things and the Acme bags created this wonderful environment for little brown roaches. One Thanksgiving a number of years ago the more the turkey cooked, the more they started to show up. I had to take the turkey out of the oven and run it around my brother-in-law's house around the corner and move the entire festivities there. Ultimately what happened was, we were able to get the exterminator, get them to agree to have the exterminator go in there and deal with that people. They were not severely mentally ill, they may have been, you know, a little off. They're both deceased now so I probably could say that, they both 54 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 were a little off, but they were cooperative. But the situation was intolerable. I was able to abate the problem. I didn't deal with it the period of time that you're dealing with it. Betty, do you have anything else to add?
I'd like to say something else. Besides the fact that we have contacted every department and we have to come back and forth for all the letters, one of the persons that came out was someone from the Department of Aging. We have explained to her the whole situation, showed her the tape. When she was about to walk away -- my husband and Eddie brought hundreds of dollars worth of pesticides, the spray from Home Depot as well as boric acid. We have done everything. Our house is filled on the outside with boric acid just to keep these roaches from coming in. They actually soaked the entire outside of the house that's covered with the roaches. Their blinds which were supposed to be white were completely black filled with roaches trying to run. These roaches were coming out, they were getting on our roof, on our house, we were watching them running up the walls and everything. They were so embarrassed that these roaches are 55 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 coming out of their house, they closed their windows and their doors with this 80-somewhat-year-old lady inside with all this pesticide in there. The lady from the Department of Aging came out as soon as we told her what was going on. She called the doctor. She was almost in tears. She said, "I can't believe this is happening to this old lady." She called the doctor and they came out to take a look at the old lady. They were going to make a decision of actually taking her out for the night and put her somewhere, even if not for a long period of time, but in just for the night so she's not sitting inside with all these pesticides which could have probably eventually killed her because they were so strong. When they were about to this, her granddaughter or daughter, whoever, drove up, got really nasty with them, told them they had no 19 right to do this. And she told her mother to get back in the house. When the lady walked out, the first time she walked out, a roach just fell off of her, literally fell off of her. The girl just looked at it and stepped on it and told her to get back in the house.
See, I think one of the 56 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 other things that in addition to what L & I is hearing and the Law Department is hearing today, there's also a unit which I relied on in the past for some help in this regard called the Philadelphia Police Department's CARE Unit, which is Crimes Against Retired and Elderly. I don't know if this is the case, but in many instances where there's a younger person living with very old or feeble person, there may be some either abuse or the ability to take advantage of that person for pension checks, Social Security checks.
That's exactly what's happened. She has told our neighbors that she's afraid to speak up because of the granddaughter or daughter living there. Now, somebody here when they were testifying said something about if you see one or two roaches on the window you don't consider that horrible. Try coming out there when the entire blinds are black from roaches, literally hundreds of roaches running out through the windows, running from the walls getting into all these houses. We're talking about row homes. They're all attached.
Let me an ask you a question. Are you aware of anybody either on Wilt 57 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 or on the street behind you that have moved as a result, people who are no longer living there? Has anyone moved out of the properties that you're aware of.
No, but we are seriously considering. My husband works in Radnor, has worked there for years. I've lived in that home, me, my 9 mother, my grandmother for 85 years. We are going 10 to move. When the spring comes, we are out of 11 there. For two and three years we've put up with 12 this and we were always blaming someone else until 13 we found out. But when I called -- when I first 14 found out about it, I called before about it and 15 they said it's probably from the alley. No one ever 16 said, "Well, you know, maybe it's some other 17 neighbor. We'll come out and see." No one ever 18 suggested that. They always made it sound like, you 19 know, you're some frustrated housewife where two 20 bugs are bothering you. But I bet I spend a couple 21 hundred dollars a year besides the exterminator just 22 trying to keep them down. An example is I had 23 company two days ago, was eating dinner, and a roach 24 fell from the ceiling even though I have 25 exterminated. So that's the truth. 58 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
I understand. I've been through it so I know what you're talking about.
That is reality. We don't have to stay there. My husband doesn't work here. We don't have to pay city wage tax. My three kids just came back from college. They're all working. That's four or five taxpayers that will be out of there by next year.
I want to ask L & I -- I want someone from L & I to come up and talk about what we're going to do about this today.
Could I just ask another question, please? You had said from L & I that what happens is that they are sent a ticket or fine or something. If they don't pay this and they don't show up to court, what do you do? What happens? This has been going on for nine years. They won't open the door, they won't let anybody in, they will not come to court. So where does it stop? If I went to their window and their window is open and I throw a bomb in there to prevent the roaches from coming into my house, I get arrested or I get fined or whatever it is that they do to me for trespassing. Yet their roaches are 59 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 coming into my property, crawling on small babies in the middle of the night. Every single night when I come downstairs, my dining room and my living room 5 has roaches in it crawling. And it's not from me. I'm home, I clean 24 hours a day. I'm constantly cleaning, doing laundry, doing everything else. There's boric acid all around. Now they've stopped coming one way or they've slowed down rather, they're going down towards Berks Street because my husband has put so much boric acid. He has stopped tried to kill them. He's just re-routing them now. So where does it stop?
Hopefully, it's going to stop today or tomorrow. Gentlemen, we're going to look at the tape now and then ask somebody to come up from L & I and Law to try to deal with this. (Videotape is shown.)
I'd like to address the mother of the two children. It's obvious that you're using a lot of pesticides to try to control this condition. I'm hoping that you're being very 60 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 careful on what you're using and I hope that maybe next time you have the kids in to the doctor that you --
We have gotten to the point where my four-year-old, every time we spray, her eyes swell up and she starts crying. So I have to take them out. Hopefully, it's not a rainy day where I can take them to the playground for a couple hours where most of the smell would come out of the house. I mean, it's ridiculous. We actually inhale more pesticides than they do, and their house is infested with these roaches.
Well, I want you to be cognizant of that and possibly make the doctors aware that the kids have been subjected to more of this than the norm. I don't want to alarm you, but it's something that I think -- obviously, you're aware of that situation, but I would like to --
Well, at this point in time they also have a 6-year-old or 7-year-old little boy that lives in that house. I don't see how that's not even considered child abuse. I mean, you have a small child living in a house that is so infested with roaches that it's taking over the 61 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 entire neighborhood, and nobody seems to say anything about that; nobody even cares. To me, if I did that to my child, my children would be in foster care.
Let me make a suggestion to you before L & I comes up here to respond to what we were talking about. You guys have the ability to contact DHS regarding the revelation of this 6- or 7-year-old in this property? The woman testified that recently a young child by the age 6 or 7 is now living in this property on Wilt. So could we coordinate with Health and DHS and whoever else has to be mobilized to get that done? What I'd like you to do is kind of finish up. We've had very graphic and clear testimony today. I'd like to finish up this panel and then I'll let L & I come up to talk about what they're gong to do next.
Just one last thing I'd like to say. These people are homeowners and they have rights. But what about our rights? We seem to have no rights at all. 62 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
That's why we're here today. I know you've been dealing with it over nine years, but I've been dealing with these issues on a week by week basis since the past eight years, and at some point in time we have to have some clear policy and procedure on how we keep this from happening to anyone else over a long period of time.
I'd like to offer a suggestion and maybe we can give you some assistance. There's an alley -- I assume you have an alleyway back there. Is that alleyway clean? Does it need to be cleaned or anything?
Behind the house all the alleys are clean except for right behind this house. When we ask them -- when we're going to have a barbecue in the yard or whatever, we ask them to clean up the dog feces. They have two dogs in their yard. At one time there was 40 piles of dog feces in the yard. They squirt it, when they get around to it, into the public alley.
With the dog issue, are the dogs left out most of the time? 63 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
Did SPCA inform you as to what the policy is? SPCA should have gone out.
They couldn't gain access. They brought the dogs through the house to the front. The gentleman Gary Lovic with the SPCA, what he told me was that the dogs are in good health. We see them, they're biting themselves, they have fleas and everything else.
I've had some success with a dog on the block where my mother lived that was constantly left out and barked constantly, hours a day; it was maddening. The 17 SPCA went out, cited the folks and told them if 18 these complaints continued that they would remove 19 the dog, and they have that authority. We can check 20 into that before you leave, follow-up with SPCA. 21 But I'd just like to offer our 22 assistance through nonprofit that Jim Kenney and I 23 run to get those alleys cleaned out that gives you 24 some relief there. Is there a lock?
No. Also, the same 64 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 house has cats. This is something new they just started. We think because of mice and rats all of a sudden they have cats. The cats are in everyone's yard. She has flower beds. The cats are digging up her flowers, they're going to the bathroom.
I would like to say two things real quick, and then I'm finished. One, regarding the roaches and everything, no matter how many people we seem to have contacted, it seems to be passed on to another department. For example when L & I said, "Well, we contacted the Health Department." We contact the Health Department, and they contact another department. Nothing seems to be going on. It's just being passed from one department to another, from one person to another. In regards to someone had mentioned something about the pigeons and the old lady feeding the pigeons for the past seven years. I understand that's a health problem. I understand it's a health hazard. When we call and say this is health hazard due to roaches, we're told it's not a health hazard, it's a nuisance. I think it's a little bit more 65 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 than a nuisance. These pigeons are outside doing their dirty things or whatever on property and that's very annoying; I understand that. But when you're laying down in the middle of the night and there's a roach crawling on your small child, I think that's a little bit past a nuisance. I think they need to see it's not exactly the same situation.
I agree. When I heard you earlier, what I was trying to do is enter a discussion as to the extreme example of explosives being stored in the basement, why is this not a health and safety hazard also. So hopefully, we're going to move in that direction. What I'd like to do is thank you for your testimony. I apologize for the City's inability to deal with this problem. I can almost assure you that your visit here will get this done and that will, hopefully, give you some solace. I'd like to have L & I come up and respond. I want to say something. This is not directed at you. It's directed at government as a whole, including us, I guess, because we probably 66 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 have not been paying as much attention as we have been recently. At that table was sitting basically three generations of Philadelphians. A person who has their children raised, through college, has no 6 great need to stay here; a middle-aged couple who probably still has kids either in high school or whatever; and young couple who's trying to raise their kids in the city. And we're in jeopardy of losing all three of those families over -- again, I don't mean this in an arrogant way, the perceived civil rights of an individual who has absolutely, whether for mental illness or otherwise, has no 14 concern or responsibility whatsoever for any type of neighborly responsibility. That's I guess -- I had no idea the extent of their problem, but they have been the perfect first panel to talk about the nightmare of living in the City sometimes.
I agree with you. We have a history -- we've just been able to check back to 1994 so what they are saying is correct. There's two things that -- and I'm not saying that people haven't complained longer than that, I'm just saying in our current ability to use our computer system. There's probably a paper trail further back than 67 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 that. We couldn't do that from Council Chambers. What I'd like to say is two things. Number 1, we're going to take this particular case and draw it out, find out what happened, document what happened, show where the weaknesses in the system were, and we'll report that to you. The second thing, in the latter part of September we did ask for an Equity Court order to enter and abate this particular problem. That, as of this morning, goes to the top of the pile. Within 72 hours of getting that court order, we will be there with as many forces as we need to, to get in and abate that property. What I'd like to mention, just if I could just make a point, is the Health Department did publish an advisory that roaches swelling from outside got a real leg up on us this year because of the drought and because of the high temperatures. So I'm not saying that we're not going to address that. What I am saying is what we're going to do is broaden our approach to make sure we have the Health Department there to see if they have to abate any outside sources for this as well as the inside source. 68 RESOLUTION NO. 990580
One of the things I was going to raise in addition to the problems that emanate from properties, I've been in contact on a frequent basis with a gentleman in the Health Department named Louis Asia (ph) who apparently has become an expert. I don't know if he's an entomologist, but he's become an expert on city bugs and sewer problems and other things. They have a program where they actually go out and put on top of a manhole cover, not the sewer grates, but a manhole cover, a tube that shoots down a cloud into the sewer system. They're usually the larger bugs that you see, the water bugs that people refer to as opposed to the dirty roaches that people refer to. So the water bug issue can be abated or can at least be kept down by the spraying of that substance into the actual sewers themselves. And what we have, like last summer -- last winter, the winter before last, we had a relatively mild winter. A number of exterminators I talked to were saying that the water bugs had grown to such great lengths because of the lack of a very cold freezing period of time during the winter where there's normally three or four weeks and the freeze kills them and it takes them a 69 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 while to grow and come back. So if Wilt Street and Memphis Street problem is exacerbated by water bugs in addition to this nuisance property, perhaps we can get the Health Department out there to spray, concentratedly spray sewers to try to keep it all down as best as possible. I know you're sincere to try to get this done within the next day or so. Can you tell me why it's taken us -- maybe Cureley can help -- from late September to almost late October to get a court order when we know that the problem exist? Is there a court delay? What's the attendance of the court system that takes so long for us to get an order?
That's what we said before, it's getting in line behind those other serious life safety issues also.
As soon as I get the court order. Cureley has moved that to the top of the pile. They're going to work on it today. I can't predict when a judge will give an order. But as soon as we get the order, within 72 hours we'll have scheduled our people and other departments.
Mr. Verdi, you have 70 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 something to add to that?
Yes. While the Commissioner was here, I made a phone call. We have, just for your knowledge, Councilman, DHS, the police department, and one of my supervisor enroute to that location to look into the child care issue. If in fact they do let us in, we may not need a court order. If they let us into the property and we can abate today, we'll abate it today.
I'm pleased that we've identified this child care issue today as a result of this hearing. Commissioner McLaughlin, after nine years of people spraying chemicals and pesticides, do you think the Health Department should possibly consider looking into what's the ramification of all those years of spraying? We concern ourselves with lead paint, and I'm sure those young children at that property, that there should be some consideration of what has been now left behind as a result of all these years because this could indirectly affect the health of these children. So I would hope maybe you would think of asking the 71 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 Health Department or I could ask the Health Department to take a look at that aspect of this.
That is a good suggestion, and I will take care of that.
Thank you very much, Gentlemen. I'd like to call the next panel. Mr. Copeland, please. Whenever I call a name, if there are two or three other neighbors for the same problem, please come forward at the same time. I'm not sure who's related to what street. There's three people on this panel? Can I also see a show of hands who else is testifying about specific neighborhood problems or experiences? Are you two ladies together? You're by yourself? I'm trying to get people up as quickly as we can. We appreciate your patience, but I think it's important that the record be very clear and very expansive that this is a problem that needs some serious attention. 72 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 If you will please identify yourself for the record.
In reference to 350 Cantrell, I live at 348 Cantrell. The problem is really, really bad. The windows were covered in roaches. The backyard was covered in roaches. I have a four-year-old son. I have a bill from Terminix for $473.36. That's not including in the bug spray that I bought around the corner for $7 a can that kills them instantly. It's not including the sticky tracks I have under the couch and behind the TV, boric acid that I put under the cabinets, plus the Terminix bill.
348, right next door. I 73 RESOLUTION NO. 990580 have a four-year-old son from spraying all this bug spray has asthma, had the croup from all the toxins from the spray and stuff. He was in Children's Hospital because of that. It was so bad, they were actually in the summertime the whole windows were covered, they were crawling outside. We had to get boric acid and put it outside the houses. One day a little boy left a cookie on the step, they all came out, the whole steps were covered, the yard was covered. I would go out in my yard and they would actually come climbing over the fences.
I know for a fact there's a case on this. And again, when you're finished we're going to try to get a status of what exactly is going on. Is the house occupied?
I think there's one person living there. There was the mother and two children. She took her two kids and went up the mountains to go live and left me in the house next door with the problem.
And I'll tell you, it's terrible. I went through so much money. I mean, it really is. Now it's calmed down a lot.