North Fort Myers home turns into junkyard

Waking up to the smell of garbage is not a fun way to start your day.

Barrels, boards and baby toys are just some of the items littering the lawn of a North Fort Myers home.

It has neighbors concerned. If they ever want to sell their house in the future, they might face some problems.

We set out to take a look at the home for ourselves. WINK News reporter Annalise Iraola spoke with the concerned neighbors.

Bill, whose girlfriend lives on the street, said, “That makes me feel bad that they could dump it at the garbage dump. Why would you throw it on the property?”

Jess, a neighbor, said, “All the neighbors are trying to make their homes look beautiful, and then you have this in the middle of it; it looks disgusting.”

Bill and Jess didn’t want to be identified but tipped us off to the problem, saying this much trash is a code violation and impacts home values there, too.

“Why would you use your yard as a garbage dump? Why? It just makes me feel bad that it’s disrespectful to the neighbors,” Bill said.

We reached out to the county, which pointed us to their website.

Here, you can see this home address on Powell Creek Circle has pages and pages of code violations.

Neighbors said it’s good to know the county is aware of the problem, but they said they just need it cleaned up.

“I’m hoping that WINK News could get a hold of whoever they have to get a hold of and get things done like they have before in the past,” Bill said.

Jess said, “I would like it to be cleaned up, like, I don’t care how it gets done; it just needs to be done, and it needs to be then, sooner rather than later because, like I said, it’s been an ongoing issue for 12 years.”

Lee County told Wink News that the code enforcement process for this property has begun.

People living in unincorporated Lee County who want to report potential code violations can do so either online at leegov.com or by calling 239-533-8895.