FORT VALLEY, Ga. — The Fort Valley Police Department made a Facebook post putting the community on notice. They say neighbors of blighted properties should watch out for a cleanup that may drive out "snakes and rodents." They say they're tackling blighted properties in the city and all that comes with it.
"Please just come knock this thing down, just come knock it down,” Alvarez Mitchell laughed.
As the saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but neighbors living next door to one blighted home say they just can't see the beauty in it.
"He or she has kind of been like that their whole life. I kind of remember them from being in high school, they had another house that kind of was the same. Ever since I've been here, it’s been like a collection -- every day, you come out here and you find something new,” he said.
Mitchell has lived next door to the home for about a year-and-a-half and says it's beyond him how police and city officials let it get this bad.
"Honestly, I just don't appreciate it because they could've been done something about it. Public health, obviously that's not healthy," he said.
The city's response to that:
"We have policework that takes priority over certain things, not saying the small things don't matter, but if we focus solely on the small things instead of taking care of the big things that need our attention right then, then how are we prioritizing?” Fort Valley Officer Demetrious Kendrick said.
Demetrious Kendrick, Chief Inspector and Division Commander with the Fort Valley Police Department, says the home on Montrose Street in Fort Valley is one of two they've begun to tackle.
"It serves two purposes -- either put the homeowners on notice that you clean it up, it’s going to be torn down, and you'll be billed at the end of the process, or you come in and do what you're supposed to do which is according to the city ordinance," he continued.
Regardless of which option is taken, the city hopes the initiative will reduce crime, beautify the city, and fight the blight.
"In the process of doing this, the City of Fort Valley can only thrive from here, but we have to start somewhere, and we have to start within the community in city limits of Fort Valley, Georgia," Kendrick said.
The home on Montrose Street is now vacant.
Kendrick says they have sent the owner a letter letting them know they'll be responsible for the cost of cleanup.
It's up to the city's public works department to decide when that cleanup will begin.