Worcester County staff will address a property in Pocomoke deemed a nuisance due to the existence of trash and miscellaneous junk items surrounding it.
Trash and other debris is pictured outside of a property in Pocomoke that Worcester County staff have declared a nuisance.
Submitted photo
Bethany Hooper, Associate Editor
County staff will address a nuisance property in Pocomoke.
The Worcester County Commissioner voted at a meeting earlier this month to declare the conditions at 842 Colona Road as a nuisance. Jennifer Keener, director of development review and permitting, said county staff had attempted to work with the property owners, but what little progress had been made earlier this year has since stalled.
“The health department has been involved in this process as well and has written them up,” she told the commissioners. “So on behalf of both the health department and DRP we’re requesting consideration for the abatement of the nuisance.”
Officials report a complaint-based investigation began last year, and that several site visits had been performed. Pictures taken throughout 2023 and 2024 show household trash and miscellaneous items surrounding the residence.
“They have a lot of household garbage and now the grass and weeds have grown up within that so we can’t just go cut the grass,” Keener explained. “We would have to do both, go in and trim it while removing.”
Keener said some attempts have been made to clean up the property, but that there had been no activity in recent months. She said phone calls and letters were made to the two property owners, who inherited the house from their father.
“They’ve made some efforts, but they have not made contact with us,” she said.
To that end, Keener said she was seeking the commissioners’ assistance in declaring the conditions a nuisance. Doing so, she said, would give the property owners 30 days to clean up the property. She added the property owners could also seek an appeal.
“So what our steps would be is to notify the property owners that this has been declared a nuisance, give them 30 days to clean it up,” she said. “If they don’t, we do an RFP to bring somebody in to do the work ourselves. That would go out to bid, and then if they don’t pay that bill then it goes onto their tax records.”
Commissioner Chip Bertino said he was concerned about the cost associated with abatement. He said in a previous case, the county had spent more than it had intended to.
“I’m just concerned we could end up in that same situation,” he said. “When you put the bid out, does that come back to us for approval?”
Keener said it would. After further discussion, the commissioners voted unanimously to declare the property a nuisance and to have staff provide an update in 30 days.