PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — Everywhere you look, behind a wooden fence at the end of a Holiday street, there’s trash.
“They can dump it fairly quick and get out of here without anyone ever seeing them,” said Code Enforcement Assistant Manager Patrick Phillips.
There are mattresses and couches everywhere.
“They’ve been there for years. Never been cleaned up,” said Debbie Consagra.
Consagra is tired of dealing with it.
“Well you can’t walk behind the dumpster because there’s other people’s junk back there. And sometimes I have to go after my cat, makes it kind of hard because I walk with a cane.”
Phillips and the rest of Pasco’s code enforcement department are reaching out to people to help them find bad spots and those leaving the trash.
The #PascoProud campaign starts with people reporting illegal dumping.
You can call, email, use the MyPasco app.
You can even post a picture and location on social media, using #PascoProud and #RIDPasco.
Anyone caught illegally dumping can be fined $500 a day for each item and be responsible for clean up costs.
After a recent ABC Action News story, the county cleaned up a private road off Dale Mabry highway and the owners are getting the bill.
Code enforcement also has their ways of catching people, including cameras.
And even a little detective work.
“We can go through the trash and turnaround and find articles of mail in there and then we can trail it that way,” said Phillips.
This lot is private property, but code enforcement says it going to cleaned up soon.
That’s great news for Debbie and her neighbors.
“I’m a nature lover. I’ve never littered in my life because that was just something I was against. I don’t agree with people that litter.”
As bad as this spot looks, code enforcement says it’s about average size for what they deal with.
They’ve gotten 143 reports of illegal dumping in the last four months.
