Any tips for living next to a vacant house?

[Smarties]

Have you contacted your local district politician about the situation. City agency's are notorious for not wanting to do anything that would take money out of their budgets.
She's old and cranky but I would reach out to her and suggest having coffee to discuss the situation. Calmly tell her that you didn't use her trash can and your car was only there for a week. Let her know that you have heard people trying to get into her parents house and you know that would upset her so you want to help her put a stop to this, if possible. Ask if she is interested in selling the house and give her the name of a local real estate agent.
About the people sitting outside or possibly trying to break in, they need to be discourage from coming around there fast, soooooo

My son had a vacant house on his street a few years ago and people were trying to break into it also. The owner lives out of state but has a landscaping company take care of yard. He is friends with the guy that lives next to the vacant house....they had called the cops but they didn't really do anything because by the time the cops came out the people were gone. So they had a brilliant idea to buy smoke bombs or stink bombs where you light the fuse and throw them because they start smoking in different colors crazy fast. When they see people walking up or driving and parking in front of the house they would sneak out of his friends back yard and light some stink bombs and throw them over the fence and run back into the house and watch from the windows. Usually the people or vagrants would hop in their car and take off and the people walking would just run away.
A few times the braver vagrants would keep walking to the backyard to enter from the backdoor so my sons friend would call 911 and report suspicious smoke coming from the empty house. When they would hear the sirens coming they would run out and throw a few smoke bombs over the fence into the back yard.
The fire department and police caught a few people a few times and each time arrested them. Its been awhile since anyone has gone onto the property, the last incident was back in the spring

Wow about the smoke bombs! I have a friend who would probably love to help me with something like that, lol. With the people around here, something like that would probably work pretty well.

Be careful. If it’s dry, they could start a fire.

Its not at all dry, but it does sound like fun! But that's not typically something I would do, lol. I'm still going to file that idea away for safekeeping for later. Might come in handy.

[Deleted User 1039]

There isn't. You can't force people to care. The most you'll get is to call about the exterior and get the city to come out and mow the jungle when it gets too bad. They'll bill her then put liens against the property but that's about it.

That may be true in your area, but not all. We have county-wide housing and property maintenance ordinances here. They aren’t nearly as strict as most HOAs, but they provide groundwork for preventing situations like this by requiring property owners to maintain their property to a reasonable extent. It covers things like holes in exterior walls, missing or broken siding or peeling paint, broken windows, deteriorating porches, trash or non working cars in the yard, graffiti, lack of smoke detectors, electrical and plumbing violations, completely neglected lawns, etc.

Deteriorating houses not only reduce the value of a neighbors property, they also provide potential serious hazards to them. So while you can’t force someone to actually care, there is sometimes recourse to make them comply. In some places, if it could be demonstrated that the OP’s property value was significantly reduced because of it, there could be recourse through a civil suit for nuisance as well.

Obviously it’s not the ideal way to go, but if she’s exhausted other options it could be worth exploring.

Yep. You can sue. That's true everywhere. What's it going to win you? It's not going to get the house repaired if it's abandoned and they don't care about it.

They won't make repairs if they don't feel like it is the bottom line. They'll get fined. So fines will accumulate against the property. As I said, you can't force someone to repair things if they don't want to.

Are you saying that you don’t think fines ever motivate people to comply with the law?

[Valentina327]

That may be true in your area, but not all. We have county-wide housing and property maintenance ordinances here. They aren’t nearly as strict as most HOAs, but they provide groundwork for preventing situations like this by requiring property owners to maintain their property to a reasonable extent. It covers things like holes in exterior walls, missing or broken siding or peeling paint, broken windows, deteriorating porches, trash or non working cars in the yard, graffiti, lack of smoke detectors, electrical and plumbing violations, completely neglected lawns, etc.

Deteriorating houses not only reduce the value of a neighbors property, they also provide potential serious hazards to them. So while you can’t force someone to actually care, there is sometimes recourse to make them comply. In some places, if it could be demonstrated that the OP’s property value was significantly reduced because of it, there could be recourse through a civil suit for nuisance as well.

Obviously it’s not the ideal way to go, but if she’s exhausted other options it could be worth exploring.

Yep. You can sue. That's true everywhere. What's it going to win you? It's not going to get the house repaired if it's abandoned and they don't care about it.

They won't make repairs if they don't feel like it is the bottom line. They'll get fined. So fines will accumulate against the property. As I said, you can't force someone to repair things if they don't want to.

Are you saying that you don’t think fines ever motivate people to comply with the law?

In this instance, it doesn't seem like fines will motivate this individual. If people want to hang on to a property it definitely will motivate them. She's left the house abandoned for 5 years. Regularly let's the outside get overgrown. The town gets on her ass. She still doesn't change. It doesn't sound like the property is worth much, or this person probably would have sold it already. She'll likely let the fines accumulate until they either condemn it or she lets it go for back taxes.

[famousglm714]

Here when people are really vocal about issues on the city’s FB page, shit gets taken care of ASAP.

[famousglm714]

Oh and maybe set out rat traps over there because those houses attract rats and other pests. Make sure no squatters are living there either and call the cops if they are. They bring a whole lot of trouble usually.

[hotspice58]

This. Check with your city and county. A higher-up may get through to her.

Are you sure there aren’t laws against letting the house fall apart? I would think there’d be some basic maintenance requirements in most places, or at least some rules about owning a property in such neglect that it would impact property values in the area. Maybe see about speaking with an attorney to see what rights you have?

[Sassy762]

Are you positive you have checked with every agency? Do you have a Housing and Preservation Developement agency? They deal with issues concerning apartments, homes and enforce all housing code violations along with the Department of Buildings, ask if they can do anything to help. You could also check with the Health department, to see if they can help in getting the house condemned if its unsafe. I like the smoke bomb idea but firecrackers would scare the crap out of the vagrants, lol

[Smarties]

Oh and maybe set out rat traps over there because those houses attract rats and other pests. Make sure no squatters are living there either and call the cops if they are. They bring a whole lot of trouble usually.

I keep rat poison in my garage. There are stray animals all over that property! At the moment I'm most concerned about the would-be squatters. I really don't need that next to me. I hesitate to contact the daughter directly about the squatters, partly because of her last nastygram to me and partly because I'm not sure what she would do anyway. Maybe when I see them next and call the police I'll give them her number and they can make that contact with her.

The Facebook page is a good idea. I can put pictures on that. I don't have a FB account but I could make one

[Traci_Momof2]

Ideally the woman should just sell it to someone who's going to fix it up nice and actually live in it. If she's not going to do anything with it there is no point in her hanging onto it. But it sounds like that's not going to happen.

I like the idea of talking to your lawyer friend and see what they say. See what kind of option they think you have. Decide what seems like the best route to take.

On contacting the owner, I get your hesitation. But if she's as emotionally attached as it seems, perhaps telling her about the potential squatters in that frame of reference will motivate her. Squatters could trample her mother's precious garden, they could soil the memory of the house by having drug parties in it. Stuff like that. If sentimentalism is the only thing having her hanging onto his property, then hit her where it hurts, in the memories of her parents.

It's a shame really because vacant properties don't have to be a nuisance. Our next door neighbor lives out of state and uses the house next door as a vacation home. But they are here maybe twice a year for a weekend at a time. It actually makes no sense to me why they hang onto the home when they barely use it. But I'm thinking they must have someone local who comes over and checks on the property because it is decently maintained and to look at it you wouldn't think it's vacant. And I've never seen any issues with random people trying to break in or anything, which we have enough homeless around the area that you think there would be problems but there aren't. So it's actually great for us because we get an automatically quiet neighbor with no issues. It's a shame the lady who owns the house next to you won't even put in basic maintenance efforts, because otherwise it could actually be really nice for you having a vacant house next door.