Some neighbors fed up with dirty foreclosed homes

A Marion County woman says the home next door had trash piled 7 feet high. It's one of thousands in the county going through foreclosure.

She and other are neighbors frustrated with run down foreclosure are now getting some help from the county.

LouAnn Robertson bought her home near Belleview during the boom. She said shortly after the home next door started looking more like a dumpsite.

"If it wasn't the economy that drove down our house values if you bought during the peak like I did, it's the neighbors that bring it down ever worse," Robertson said. 

Robertson said squatters moved in and the situation only got worse.

"You'd see them walk outside with a bag of trash and then wind it up and throw it on the trash pile. And that trash pile they had out there was probably 6 or 7 feet tall," Robertson said. 

Just about a week ago she said a property manager got the house back into reasonable shape.

She suspects it's because of a new law Marion County Commissioners passed.

Banks or whoever the mortgagee is must now register their vacant foreclosed properties with the county.

"What the ordinance calls for is for the mortgagee to maintain the property. And that would include mowing the lawn and trimming the bushes, maintaining pools and spas such that it doesn't become a code violation or dwindle the property values of the area," said Marion County spokesperson Heather Danenhower. 

Under the new ordinance, once a property is registered with Marion county, code enforcement officers will start monitoring it for violations.

"Prior to the ordinance our code enforcement officers would have to wait until the foreclosure process ended. And that could take months, even years," Danenhower said. 

Robertson got sick of waiting and spent thousands of dollars to block the blight next door. 

"We felt that we're stuck here. We can't sell. So the only way to live here safely was to invest in a board on board fence," Robertson said.