07/23/1998 BOARD OF HEALTH Minutes

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MINUTES July 23, 1998 4 BOARD OF HEALTH Mr. Doherty responded, "It has to in order to get an occupancy permit which means at one point in time it did." "If it fails to meet that now there is no recourse unless they were tenants." "We could go to the courts and have him forced out." Mr. Herbst questioned, "What about the illegal dumping issue?" "You said that he was guilty of illegal dumping in his home and piling up recyclable materials that have a deposit." "If that illegal dumping or isn't it?" Mr. McQuaid responded, "Mr. Cram and I came to a conclusion that what Mr. Dominie was doing is trying to collect some money by collecting these recyclables." "We couldn't come to the conclusion that he was illegally dumping because illegally dumping in the code means trash/garbage." "What he was doing is collecting recyclables." "I saw no sign of trash it was milk jugs, cans and recyclables." Mr. Herbst questioned, "What about the stuff inside his house?" Mr. McQuaid responded, "I didn't go in there." "I have no right to go in there unless I am asked." "I condemned the house along with the building department to try to get him to cleanup his act." "We concluded that it was unsafe to life in from both an electrical fire prevention point of view, it has little to do with what was outside the house." Mr. Herbst questioned, "Isn't he in violation of illegal dumping inside his home?" Mr. Doherty responded, "We have to get inside the house to verify this and we're not going to do that." "We need overwhelming reason to enter the house unless he invites us in." "Condemning the house may be an issue and I might be stretching it here but maybe his homeowner's insurance, if he has any, is voided by the fact that we condemned the house." "Is that an incentive to cleanup, I don't know." "If he is living like that he probably doesn't have homeowner's insurance but neither does he care so there is no leverage there." "Obviously, he is living in a'condemned home." "He does feel any pressure because we've condemned it." "Short of there being no tenants there, there is no enforceable action except if we go to a judge and have him declared incompetent and I'm not going to do that and I wouldn't expect the health agent to do that either." Mr. Herbst commented, "If I think there is a fire hazard there and I think his life is in jeopardy because of the way he is living." "Would you recommend that I go to the fire department and ask them whether it is safe for him to live there?" Mr. Evans commented, "They have no more rights than we."