Family meets deadline Wednesday to clean up property in Colorado Springs

Code enforcement officers in Colorado Springs said Thursday that a family is out of trouble — for now — regarding a house that accumulated trash and possessions and became an eyesore and health risk to neighbors.
The home on Whittier Drive — owned by an elderly woman who lives there with her son, Rodney Leacock — has been on officers’ radar since July, and officers said the family has repeatedly failed to comply with requests to remove clutter that covered the yard, porch, driveway and curb.

Officers visited the home on Tuesday, disposed of some of the trash and moved some of the possessions to a storage facility to which only officers have access.

The family was then ordered to clean up the rest of the property by 1 p.m. Wednesday or face citations and the seizure of remaining possessions.

At times, the family and two friends — and some of the officers — worked on cleanup.

Officers said at the deadline, they were satisfied with the progress made and that they wouldn’t seek further enforcement action.

However, the family must appear before a judge to reclaim their seized possessions.

Neighbors said the family also has five vehicles, some parked along the street, that are rarely used, full of items and have expired license plates. Officers placed warning notices on at least one of the vehicles.

So why was the home such a mess?

Leacock said he recently lost access to a storage unit and a moving company backed out of helping him.

He also said his habit of claiming abandoned items from people who move out of apartments account for some of his possessions.

“A neighbor let me use his large tarp so that I could keep my stuff covered and no one would steal it,” Leacock said. “But officers said I couldn’t use it. As soon as I get the money, I was going to take care of all of this. None of my neighbors offered to help me.”

Neighbors doubt the situation is truly resolved.

“He’s done this before,” said James Zuber, the son of a neighbor. “He just blames someone else instead of blaming himself. This isn’t the end of it. It’s going to happen again. But I’m glad the officers came out and did something.”

Officers said a judge gave them authority to conduct the enforcement action.

“We haven’t had to go this far in more than two years,” said Mitch Hammes, of code enforcement. “Normally, we can talk with the property owners and convince them to address the problem themselves so that we don’t have to resort to this.”

Hammes said the family won’t be cited but is responsible for paying $2,000 in cleanup costs.