A storm in June is still causing controversy for one Donelson family.
The controversy surrounds whether Nashville Electric Services should be responsible for removing debris and branches its crews cut away from electric equipment.
The company says that is against its policy.
Marcia Troutt says if you make the mess you should clean up your mess.
Troutt’s mother is 77 and her father is 82 and confined to a wheelchair. The couple has lived in the small house next to the NES right of way for decades.
Troutt says in June, after a storm, the door bell rang, late at night. Her mother answered the door. It was NES technicians asking to access their equipment through the couple’s property.
“A man with flashlight from NES went back there. He said we have a problem and we’re sending a crew right out. They went back and cut down some trees on the lines. It was the middle of the night, like 2 a.m. They left [the limbs] where they cut them. One fell on my dad’s shed. One fell in their backyard. They left them there for us to clean up. My dad is confined to wheelchair. I think you make a mess, clean it up.”
Messed Up takes the issue to NES. The power giant assigns spokesperson Tim Hill to the case.
“We had a trouble call. There was a tree on a distribution line behind the customer’s home. Crews went out to trim the tree off the line to reenergize. They asked [the property owner] for permission to put bucket in there, to do the work, he said okay, so we trimmed the tree, and it was on the line and there were limbs on the shed he has back there. Our policy is we don’t remove it from out buildings. It is a liability issue.”
In addition, Hill says the company believes the tree fell on the shed from a neighbor’s property.
“Our policy is we clear the lines and because it is weather-related, the trees that fall on private property we don’t clean up from a shed or out building for liability issues. We just don’t remove it.”
Messed Up asks Mr. Hill if anyone from the electric giant would be willing to meet with the family and re-evaluate their case.
Mr. Hill says he asks, and the answer is no. NES is not willing to meet with the family, citing company policy as the bottom line.
Hill suggests to Messed Up that the family turn the case over to their homeowner’s insurance or get someone to haul the tree to the curb where Metro Public Works can pick it up.
“They were back there. They got mom out of bed two times. They were back there and cut trees. It is clearly cut. It’s not lighting. It is a clean saw cut,” Trott explains.
“Are they blowing you off?”
“I think they made a mess and don’t want to clean it up. My parents are elderly. They can’t clean it and we expect people to do right.”
So what do you think? NES says its policy prohibits crews from cleaning up debris they themselves may make while fixing electrical equipment.
The grass and bushes and small trees are so thick, so tall, I literally drove by the address three times wondering where the house was.
The property owner has two homes on Lawing Drive just off Old Hickory Boulevard in the Belshire community.
His corner lot is so overgrown at the curb, that cars have difficulty seeing on coming traffic and his second home, which neighbors say has not been occupied for decades, is a jungle.
Willard Short has lived next to the man since the 60s.
When I tell Short that I couldn’t see his neighbor’s home from the street, he bursts out laughing.
“It’s a big mess. It’s been this way since his wife divorced him 35 years ago. We’re lucky if it is cut once a year.”
I ask why he doesn’t maintain the property.
“He is tight as bark on a tree,” Short replies. “He won’t let go of the money.”
“How does this make you feel?” I ask.
“It makes me feel bad. [There are] skunks and possums and coons and they come out at night and we can’t even leave out bird feeders.”
“What do people say?”
“There’s not a house there is it? This used to be one of the nicest houses on the street.”
“What would you say to the man?”
“I would tell him to get off his lazy butt and do something about it.”
Wayne Denton works with the Metro Health Department, an agency that gets, on average, 3,400 high grass complaints every year.
Denton says he’s seen worse yard problems but admits Lawing Drive is pretty bad.
“We’re trying to get this property cut. The owner has been in court several times. We have a show cause hearing to get it cut.”
A show cause hearing, according to Denton, is where the judge orders the resident to prove that court order has been obeyed.
Denton says the first complaints on the man’s two properties date back to mid-May.
“He needs to cut it or clean it or he’ll be fined,” he adds.
Officials say the judge has imposed a $100-a-day fine on the property owner until he proves the property has been cut.
Denton takes Messed Up around back where he finds a myriad of violations, not the least of which is buckets full of stagnating water.
“These are mosquito breeders, there is some trash here and some buckets here that could be mosquito breeders,” he says. “We can cite him for breeding mosquitoes.”
Inspectors have done all they can to get compliance. It is now up to the court to decide if the owner must pay the $100 per day injunction or possibly go to jail.
The Better Business Bureau of Middle Tennessee says complaints continue to pour in regarding the American Shingle roofing company.
The watch dog agency says the Atlanta-based company has an F-rating for allegedly taking customer insurance money and then not fixing roofs, or providing refunds in a timely manner.
Messed Up has learned of six families on Blue Springs Road, all in one cul-de-sac, who feel like they have been scammed.
Roxanne Turner lives in the 4800 block. Her neighbor around the corner is Kim Noseworthy.
The women have more in common than living on the same street.
Both women have American Shingle Roofing signs in their front yards. Both women are frustrated. Both women want their roofs fixed or their money returned.
Turner says she has been dealing with the Atlanta Roofing Co. since April 15. She says she’s had a blue tarp spread across her roof for months now.
“I’ve been waiting for three months,” she says.
“I got an appointment for June 9 and that got close, then [American Shingle] said it will be the end of June, then beginning of July, then the third week of July, now it is tomorrow. They put a dumpster in yard.”
Turner says she signed over $1,800 to the company in mid-April.
She says the excuses are wearing her out.
“The first time they could not do it, they said they were backed up from floods, and then they said they want to make sure materials were right, they didn’t want to use shoddy materials. They tell me they are backing it up again.”
I ask if she is mad.
“That is not the word. It is messed up,” she says.
About this time, Noseworthy arrives with her child in tow. The women seem to meet for the first time and immediately they have something in common.
“Like you I have one of those in my yard,” Noseworthy says pointing to the American Shingle sign in Turner’s front yard “They were supposed to do my job today. A week ago, they said it was pushed back to Sept 23, something about material and supply issues.”
Noseworthy says luckily her insurance company stopped payment on the check to American Shingle.
“What is it that is messed up? For me, they came out in March got our roof looked at, and an adjuster from insurance company said, ‘Yes, you need one,’ so it was approved. We got all our paperwork in, phone calls from project coordinator were made, we got the insurance check for $3,459.64, this is dated 5/21/10,” she says while holding out the check. “I am extremely frustrated. I thought this was legit. I heard nothing against them.”
The women are mad that they have one or two day roofing jobs and it is taking 90-days to get their roofs fixed.
I tell them they are just two unsatisfied customers in a cul-de-sac with four other alleged victims.
The women are sweating mad by this point and simply say over the top of one another, “Make it right. Fix my damn roof. Or give me my money back.”
That was Thursday.
Messed Up immediately hit the phones and email and began complaining in behalf of the people on Blue Springs Road.
Mrs. Turner reports those complaints paid off because by this weekend crews were on her roof.
As of Monday, August 2 her roof was half way done. By phone she says, “The back half is done and half the front is done. I think your calls definitely got them out here.”
Mrs. Noseworthy tells us that nobody from American Shingle has contacted her. She says it could be because her insurance company stopped payment on the check.
A woman who claims to run the roofing company on Turner’s roof refused to tell us her company’s name.
She said she subcontracts to American Shingle and she says that she has no direct contact with the main office.
When I asked about the coincidence of my calls and the roof being completed, she laughed and said it was a strange coincidence.
We’ll have more on this company and possible legislation to tighten control over the industry in future editions of “That is Messed Up.”
In the meantime, below are some other items we have learned about the company and its license with the state.
Andy,
I found out a little bit more information about American Shingle. The company is licensed through the Dept. of Commerce and Insurance’s Contractors Board. In order to be licensed, a company must have a $10,000 surety bond and if there are one or more employees, workers comp insurance.
Eight counties, including Davidson, require a home improvement contractor’s license for projects over $3,000 but less than $25,000.
Also, the contractor’s board and the consumer affairs division have each received one complaint against American Shingle.
Blake Fontenay
Communications Director
Tennessee Departments of Comptroller, State and Treasury
Multiple emails to American Shingle’s PR representative yielded this response:
Andy:
I sent these to our legal department, as I am out of the office this week.
The sign says: Welcome to Inglewood. It’s where we want to live.
Residents in this quaint suburb of Nashville say they want to live here, but it’s increasingly difficult when so many trucks zip down streets not built to handle the load.
According to a 2008 Metro Public Works traffic survey: more than 1,700 vehicles a day traverse through a very small Inglewood neighborhood tucked between Gallatin Road, and a series of rail road tracks.
According to the traffic study, 52,000 vehicles a month travel down Maynor and Iverson, and Coney and West Kirkland, where the speed limit is 30 mph.
Many of these vehicles are headed to a business park on West Kirkland that is the hub for 25 businesses.
And that’s the rub.
Big trucks, traveling too fast on streets not designed for this volume of traffic.
So why are trucks on these streets?
They should come and go from West Kirkland, but many trucks miss the turn and use other roads leading through the neighborhoods.
The turn at West Kirkland is also restrictive from Gallatin road due to a rail road bridge that severely affects how vehicles can turn onto and off of Gallatin road.
According to Jack Curtis, trucks have hit guard rails, utility poles, and fire hydrants.
Curtis says at least once a week, a semi truck travels down a street that clearly prohibits loads bigger than 26,000 pounds. More than once a week, the electrician says one of those big rigs gets hung up in front of his house.
The man who lives on the corner of Iverson and Coney says he is afraid that is just a matter of time before a child is injured or killed.
“Will it take a kid getting run over by one of these vehicles?
These trucks fly through here. They throw garbage in the streets.
I want to tell them. We are going to close this road. All our constituents are fed up. We can’t stop progress, but we want an access cut.
Curtis is suggesting a road be built from the business park on West Kirkland across the rail road tracks, through an electrical sub station and onto Home Road which also leads to Gallatin road and other major thoroughfares.
Messed Up asks Metro Public Works about this plan and we are told that the agency has invested many hours studying this problem and to date, nothing that works for everyone has been adopted.
Gwen Hopkins of Metro Public Works says the council voted by a 4-3 hand vote to ban all trucks over 26,000 pounds on Iverson Avenue, Maynor Avenue, Coney Street. - Effective August 2009.
She says signs for truck weight restrictions were installed in August 2009.
Hopkins adds that if trucks are not obeying the restriction, it would be an enforcement issue.
Metro Police tell Messed Up, in the last five years, officers have written 2,500 citations or warning tickets to vehicles in these neighborhoods.
The owner of American Business Park is John Stephenson. By phone he tells me this:
“Basically, we’ve been to the meetings. The industrial park was there before those houses. I came up with a left hand turn lane. I was willing to subsidize some of it. I am trying to get the city to meet me part way. But they don’t want to do it. It is very difficult to get into the place. We have been trying to work with the community to make it work. I don’t like using the street anymore than they want us to.
I have encouraged our tenants not to use it as well. I have spent a lot of money for attorneys. They were going to restrict our access, with no trucks. We compromised at 26,000 pounds. It was industrial before it was homes.”
I ask Stephenson how difficult it would be tear out the median near West Kirkland and move the rail road bridge.
“We would have to dig out the median, and dig out the Inglewood sign and relocate that. I have hired a traffic study. I would end up spending 50k and it doesn’t solve all the problems. I have notified the truck drivers here is the way to do it. I have had community meetings.
Stephenson says 25 businesses now call his business park home.
Inglewood Councilwoman Karen Bennett has been on this issue for years.
“The issue is a frustrating situation. Geographically it is a bad location for a business district to exist near a residential area and railroad tracks that is blocking them in. Neighbors are tired of the trucks and we have been dealing with this for three years. We have restrictions on large semis, but they are not all complying. We had this fire plug run over and it ran for hours, the driver kept going. There is speeding in the community and the residents are frustrated.”
Bennett tells me that the business complex has every right to be here, and is zoned correctly.
Mark Macy is a senior official at the Department of Public Works. I asked him about the problem and here is what he says:
“The median is part of the problem. Mr. Stephenson (the business park owner) claims a turn lane here will make things safer for traffic. Get me a traffic engineer with a study to say that. We don’t think it would be safer, or we’d have done it. There are site distance issues. If you take out the median, then people coming out will make an illegal left and cause too many problems.
Also, if they want to develop a turn lane, they should submit, plans specs and cost estimates to build a turn lane. There is storm drain culvert under all this. We would need the correct site distance calculations to make sure we are covered. Also we would need to ask for permission from the rail road if it is needed. Not sure, but it is right near their pier. Some of the work would occur in a rail road easement. Then we’d expect him to pay.”
I ask if the city would pay for the job.
“That’s up to the council,” Macy says. “Normally we get council to approve a project in capital budget and if it is in the capital improvement budget, a wish list, then we asks them to appropriate funds. That is not my call.”
Macy says the problem is the neighborhood is between rail road tracks and Gallatin road. He says all this was built before zoning and planning departments were around. “If there was a solution, we would have found it all ready. This is one of the toughest ones we have seen for a resolution,” Macy added.
As the warmer days approach, the number of complaints to the Metro Health Department grows longer.
Metro Health officials say those complaints are rising steadily in the wake of a tough economy that has seen many foreclosures and home abandoned.
Brian Todd, spokesperson for the Metro Public Health Department, writes, “Recent rain and warm weather signal the start of the growing season when grass and weeds can quickly overtake a property. Health Department General Sanitation inspectors are now responding by checking out problem properties and issuing notices to owners to get the property cut. Last year, Metro Health inspectors responded to more than 2,500 high grass and weed complaints in Davidson County. Call the Health Department at 340-5644 to report a property with high grass and weeds.”
Messed Up goes with one of those inspectors to a house in south Nashville.
The home appears to be abandoned and the grass and weeds are waist high.
Jawon Lauderdale says he knows this house and its owner and he says he plans to take aggressive measures here.
“We can send out a 10 day notice of abatement, instructing the property owner to clean the property, to cut it, to maintain it. I will send out a court citation and get the owner in front of the judge. If the property is not maintained then we’ll go to contempt of court charges.”
Lauderdale says this is his first inspection this year, and he plans to issue the owner a court citation to let him know the property is in violation and in need of immediate cleaning and cutting.
He says lack of compliance might end up costing the owner $50 a day.
Lauderdale says it is less about aesthetics and more about health.
“An area like this, under a canopy of trees and with the height of that grass, it keeps moisture in the ground and it is a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes,” he tells Messed Up.
Lauderdale says issues like West Nile Virus concern him as do the possibility for snakes and rats.
With spring comes yard work and with yard work come piles of brush and debris that Metro residents stack by the curb.
It’s been this way for decades.
Residents put out the debris and the city comes by, for free, and removes it.
But with cut backs, service has changed.
Metro Public Works comes by fewer times per year and with half the trucks and crews.
That means Metro residents need to be more aware of what they are placing at the curb, and when they are putting it there.
According to Metro Public Works PIO Gwen Hopkins, the Web site has all the answers, from when you should put out your debris to the do’s and don’ts of brush removal.
“Become familiar with the service as provided today. It is a route system and the county is divided into 12 routes. We run the trucks three times a year, instead of five,” she said.
Hopkins said budget cuts also forced the department to go from 20 trucks and crews to 10.
She suggests signing up for an email notification that will tell you when the trucks are coming to your neighborhood.
Andy,
I have lived in TN for 5 years now and I have a question: Why does TN allow people to pile up household trash and discarded items out in the open where the neighbors and passersby can see? Allowing people to turn their yards into their own private garbage dumps just doesn’t seem right to me. Litter is everywhere in this beautiful countryside, along the roadways, in the rivers, lakes and streams. I saw a cow eating a plastic bag discarded by some careless citizen when I was out driving one day.
100 yards from my mailbox is a growing pile of garbage. It started out as an old sofa, some roofing material, cardboard, insulation and other miscellaneous items. The weeds grew up around it. Recently, the owner piled two dozen or more fully loaded white garbage bags on top of it. Who knows what’s in those bags that could leach out. It is very near a pond that has a stream that runs along the edge of my property and into another neighbor’s pond. It is attracting mice and probably rats. We have convenience centers very nearby and since everyone pays a fee to maintain them via their electric bills why not use them? We also have a disposal service that for a fee will pick up your trash weekly.
Am I wrong in thinking that this is MESSED UP?
At the time, Golden’s building was covered with gang symbolism.
A neighborhood group organized by Metro Councilwoman Anna Page painted over the graffiti and the building was graffiti free for six months.
Now the graffiti is back. Mr. Golden plans to paint over the mess, but he is also now looking to up the ante.
Golden says a mural that fits the automotive theme of his store and ties in with the Flat Rock Community would look great on the side of his building.
Councilwoman Page also likes the idea and has contacted schools and neighborhood organizations about the project.
Messed Up contacted respected artist Michael Cooper for his input on this plan.
Cooper, whose work can be seen at the Nashville Zoo and all around the country, tells Messed Up murals work and it is a key anti-graffiti strategy in other cities like Philadelphia.
According to Cooper, there are thousands of city sponsored murals which take potential taggers and transform them into productive artists.
Cooper says rarely do taggers spray over art work like murals, and the city of Philadelphia makes money from the murals by selling calendars and even promoting tours to look at the urban art.
“It is the kids in the neighborhood,” Golden says. ‘They want to belong to something but they don’t realize they belong to a great neighborhood here. I wish they would be more constructive, if they want to paint, paint a mural for me, cars whatever, show some pride in the neighborhood.”
More trouble for a Nashville Realty Company that has recently been in the news:
In the wake of a Messed Up investigation, Metro Public Works, Codes, and the Metro Health Department are all taking action against Barrett Realty Company.
The latest complaints center around city owned trash cans at 3 Barrett Properties. These trash cans are full of construction grade material, some of which has spilled into a nearby culvert.
Metro officials say it is not the city’s job to pick up these trash containers at the expense of tax payers.
Mike Brandle has lived on Barrett Drive for 10 years. The house next to Brandle’s is a Barrett run property. Brandle told us this property is currently empty and being renovated.
On the day Messed Up arrived in this South Nashville neighborhood, it was trash day, and garbage cans lined the street. The 3 cans in front of the Barrett owned property at 412 Barrett Drive were over flowing with what appears to be roofing material.
Brandle said these garbage cans are out here all the time, and that these cans have been over flowing with construction material like this for weeks.
We drove around the neighborhood to look at other Barrett properties. We found trash cans filled with similar construction grade material, and, at one location, the cans were turned over and in the culvert.
We returned to the neighborhood hours later. The city garbage trucks had rolled through, and most of the cans had been removed from the street. The cans next to Mr. Brandle’s home were still at the curb, however the roofing material was gone, replaced with contractor grade trash bags.
We spoke with Billy Lynch who heads up the Metro Public Works Department. He said Barrett’s use of the city owned trash cans is a clear violation.
According to Lynch, city haulers should not pick up debris like this because it is against the following code:
10.20.290 Building debris–Responsibility for removal.
A. Building debris such as scrap lumber, plaster, roofing, concrete, brickbats, and sanding dust resulting from the construction, repair, remodeling or demolition of any building or appurtenances on private property will not be removed by the department of public works, and the owner must cause such materials and waste to be privately moved.
Lynch said the construction material exceeds the weight limitations for a 96 gallon container. He also said the haulers removed the Barrett cans because citizens complained about the way they looked. Lynch said the company is abusing the city service, and that his agency picked up all the city owned garbage receptacles at the 3 Barrett addresses we visited. Lynch also said Public Works mailed a letter of violation for each address to the realty company.
Metro Codes also confirmed it has an active investigation on the three Barrett properties. Metro Health has issued the company a notice to clean up the spilled trash at 408 Wimpole.
Once again, Messed Up went to Barrett Realty on Murfreesboro Road for a reaction. A man in the office told Messed Up to leave or the police would be called. We exited, unable to obtain a statement from the company regarding the recent developments.
As you may recall, Barrett Realty is the same company Messed Up investigated in a story earlier this month. At that time, new renters said Barrett Realty moved the previous tenant’s belongings to the front lawn for the city to pick up. After Messed Up got involved the city cited the agency, and Barrett Realty removed the furniture.
They say possession is nine-tenth of the law. They also say “Finder’s Keepers, Losers Weepers.”
Both sayings are accurate in this story.
On one end, you have two sisters more than a 100-years-old seeking to reclaim priceless family heirlooms.
On the other end of the story you have an amateur genealogist who owns the Perry County house where the women were born, who now has possession of the artifacts the older women want back.
Lily Thomas Boyd is 103. Her little sister, Juanita Thomas, is 101.
The centenarians now live in north Nashville, in a home that is full of photographs and history.
Of 11 children born to George and Florence Thomas, only Lily and Juanita are still alive.
The family was born and raised in Linden, Tennessee.
Over the years, family members moved away. Some became teachers. Others became politicians.
In the meantime, county records indicate that Rachel Szuliman bought the family homestead.
By phone, Szuliman told Messed Up the house was a disaster, abandoned for decades and left open to transients.
Szuliman and her husband restored the house to pristine condition.
In doing so they encountered artifacts belonging to the Thomas family.
She found church records from the 1890’s and slave records from the 1860’s. She found a biographical sketch written by the women’s father, George Thomas, in 1867. Szuliman also found a bible that Lily and Juanita say is more than 125 years old and has great sentimental value to the family.
Szuliman is blunt when she discusses the matter.
Much more on that in a moment, but in a nutshell Szuliman says she has given the sisters several items and made others available to them online or at her home.
Szuliman questions why the women and or their family never came to look for these priceless possessions in all the years the house was there, prior to her taking possession.
Back to the sisters — The tiny women, a combined 204 years of age, easily fit on the small sofa. They begin to reminisce and explain what the items and family mean to them.
Though younger by two years, Juanita is not as verbal and allows Lily to do most of the talking.
The former minister’s wife has a remarkably vivid memory.
When I ask her how old she is she smiles, saying, “I am very young. I will be 104 years old in three weeks.”
I laugh and listen to the super-senior who tells me she was born on March 30, 1906 at 2 a.m. in the morning in Linden, Tennessee.
“There are different things we treasured, that got misplaced somehow when we left Linden,” Lily says.
Before I can ask her another question, Lily launches into another story, this one about her grandfather with the bright blue eyes.
“My father’s father was Dr. Cole,” she said. “He was doctor for the king in England. When he didn’t bow to the king, he had to slip out [of the country] and come to America. That was 1842.”
I try and ask her what the letters and bible mean to her.
“I would treasure them forever and pass them on down,” she said. “They would be passed on down through the Thomas family.”
I ask how old the bible is.
“It’s at least from 1842,” she said. “I’m not sure how old before then.”
Lily tells me that her mother, Florence, was a church worker and in the 1920’s she organized women to vote.
“My mom got them together in Perry County and carried them to the polls to vote,” she said with great assurance.
“My older brother was a lawyer. He was a great politician. He didn’t miss any conventions. He was a Republican. In my family we had many, many ancestors in the Civil War.”
I try and get her back on track about the heirlooms she would like returned.
“I am just shocked at the woman. Anytime we went to Linden we stopped by, she gave us a few things, but not everything.”
“What would you say to her right now?” I ask.
Her eyes brighten and she leans forward on the couch. “If I could talk to her, what would I say? I am shocked and surprised you had these things, belonging to my great ancestors on my dad’s side and to keep that bible, and it is treasured in our family all through the years. To think you kept it all these years I am shocked. She should give it to me. I think she is a good Christian woman, and why she is keeping it I don’t know, and it hurts me and she won’t give it to the family. It doesn’t mean anything to her whatsoever.”
“What does it mean to you?” I ask.
“It means everything to us. It is history and carries us back through life and up to the present. I can’t express how much it would mean. I couldn’t express that in words what it would mean to pass it on down.”
Like every story, there are two sides. There are two sides to this story as well.
I speak with Mrs. Szuliman by phone for a long time. She is candid in her remarks when I tell her what Lily and Juanita have to say.
On March 5, 2010 Szuliman tells me the following:
“It [the items] had been in the house for 30 years. I worked and went through all the trash. The house was abandoned. The floors had collapsed. The front door wouldn’t close. Neighbors report people coming in and going out. There were vagrants that came and went and took things for 30 years. I am not willing to go through the whole process and give them back the things they could have gotten themselves. I bought the house 10 years ago. [County records show the house was purchased in 1993.] What was in the house was exposed to anyone who wanted anything for 30 years prior to that. Now they want it back.”
When I ask her why they want it back now, Szuliman says, “Why? Because they found out it was there. They had been searching for the bible for years and never looked for it.”
“Were they too lazy to look through the trash?”
“The house was in total disrepair. The city wanted to condemn the house. It is a piece of history for the neighborhood. We fought for [the house.] My husband worked on the house. He was out there building homes in the area, two weeks after heart surgery. The windows were knocked out, the floor collapsed. It was so full of trash, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“After we worked on it, we had to jack the rooms up. We had to jack them up. We are old house-people. These are part of the history of Perry County.”
I tell her how important the documents seem to be to the women.
Szuliman replies, “I wanted to save the important documents of the family. I am not willing to give them to any one person. I want them shared with the whole family, which is why I put them on the Internet.”
She continued, “If I give them to one person, guess what, they won’t share them. The people pushing for this won’t share. There are several grand children. The one wanting this won’t tell the others about their heritage.”
Szuliman tells me that Lily is the one pushing this.
“I live in her uncle’s house. We re-did it. We wanted the family to come back and feel at home. I’m now on the outs with them.”
“After I did all this work, and now they have this attitude. I rescued them. The city wanted to burn this house. They burned the house two doors up.”
I ask her if the material is valuable.
“I don’t think so,” she replies. “I think they just wanted to know where it was. If a building sits for 30 years and nobody looks for the family bible in all that time, what does that tell you? It tells you they are too lazy. They want someone else to look through the trash and reap the benefits. It doesn’t work that way. This house was open 30 years. We bought it, and it was so bad we couldn’t tell there was a house. It was so overgrown in front, took four months to get through and dig it out.
“How did you find the artifacts?” I ask.
“By working and by luck,” she says. “I went through everything. I threw away garbage. I saved what was savable. They are giving me a terrible struggle on this and I think, where are they coming from?
“I bought it 10 years ago. It sat for 30 years before that. Why didn’t they go through and look in all that time? I think they want something for nothing. That is my opinion. They are happy they found it, now they think they can claim it. They cannot. They can’t say that is mine. Maybe they will take part of the foundation of the house. I am willing to share with the family. They can come to my house, anyone or everyone, but if they want to take it with them, well that is not the way I work. [The house] was condemned. All these documents would have been burned without me. They don’t appreciate that. They just want their hands on it.”
A conservator for the sisters says that the law is on Szuliman’s side since she legally purchased the house and all the contents inside.
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“A man with flashlight from NES went back there. He said we have a problem and we’re sending a crew right out. They went back and cut down some trees on the lines. It was the middle of the night, like 2 a.m. They left [the limbs] where they cut them. One fell on my dad’s shed. One fell in their backyard. They left them there for us to clean up. My dad is confined to wheelchair. I think you make a mess, clean it up.” 
“Our policy is we clear the lines and because it is weather-related, the trees that fall on private property we don’t clean up from a shed or out building for liability issues. We just don’t remove it.”
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The grass and bushes and small trees are so thick, so tall, I literally drove by the address three times wondering where the house was.
Wayne Denton works with the Metro Health Department, an agency that gets, on average, 3,400 high grass complaints every year.
Denton takes Messed Up around back where he finds a myriad of violations, not the least of which is buckets full of stagnating water.
Turner says she has been dealing with the Atlanta Roofing Co. since April 15. She says she’s had a blue tarp spread across her roof for months now.
The sign says: Welcome to Inglewood. It’s where we want to live.
They should come and go from West Kirkland, but many trucks miss the turn and use other roads leading through the neighborhoods.
The man who lives on the corner of Iverson and Coney says he is afraid that is just a matter of time before a child is injured or killed.
As the warmer days approach, the number of complaints to the Metro Health Department grows longer.
Lauderdale says this is his first inspection this year, and he plans to issue the owner a court citation to let him know the property is in violation and in need of immediate cleaning and cutting.
With spring comes yard work and with yard work come piles of brush and debris that Metro residents stack by the curb.
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Now the graffiti is back. Mr. Golden plans to paint over the mess, but he is also now looking to up the ante.
Cooper, whose work can be seen at the Nashville Zoo and all around the country, tells Messed Up murals work and it is a key anti-graffiti strategy in other cities like Philadelphia.
Lynch said the construction material exceeds the weight limitations for a 96 gallon container. He also said the haulers removed the Barrett cans because citizens complained about the way they looked. Lynch said the company is abusing the city service, and that his agency picked up all the city owned garbage receptacles at the 3 Barrett addresses we visited. Lynch also said Public Works mailed a letter of violation for each address to the realty company. 
On one end, you have two sisters more than a 100-years-old seeking to reclaim priceless family heirlooms. 
“It’s at least from 1842,” she said. “I’m not sure how old before then.”
Szuliman replies, “I wanted to save the important documents of the family. I am not willing to give them to any one person. I want them shared with the whole family, which is why I put them on the Internet.”
