JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Two men say they were wrongfully cited by the city of Jacksonville over trash they say is not theirs.<\/p>\n
John Watson and his brother Jim own the 617 Melba Street lot. It\u2019s a lot that is covered with piles of garbage. <\/p>\n
They recently got letters in the mail dated February 13th, saying their property was cited for a \u201cnuisance\u201d violation for \u201cgarbage and debris\u201d.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n The letter went on to say that if they didn\u2019t have the trash cleaned up in 15 days, they would be fined.<\/p>\n But the Watsons say that\u2019s not their mess to clean up.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been fighting with the city to have this all cleaned up because it\u2019s the neighbors at 620\u2019s trash, and it\u2019s been going on for like two years,\u201d said John Watson. \u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n We told you last Friday that one neighbor submitted complaints to the city of Jacksonville about the trash for over a year.<\/p>\n He says he watched as the trash was pulled from the house on 620 Chestnut Street and put into a dumpster a few months ago.<\/p>\n But in the last few weeks, he and the Watsons say that the dumpster \u2013 and just the dumpster — was picked up by someone\u2026while the trash was left behind.<\/p>\n Robert Jeffers works across the street and saw the whole thing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe physically watched them dump the trash out of the dumpster back onto the lawn and leave,\u201d Jeffers told Action News Jax\u2019s Madison Foglio last week. <\/p>\n Since Action News Jax brought you this story on Friday, the city has inspected both the Watson\u2019s property and 620 Chestnut Street.<\/p>\n The Watsons were left with this orange sign that reads \u201ctrash\/debris remains: sent for abatement.\u201d<\/p>\n We went around the corner and spoke with the tenants at the house the Watson\u2019s claim is behind the trash.<\/p>\n He says they got cited too…but the Watsons still believe they shouldn\u2019t be responsible for any of this.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t ask for the trash. I don\u2019t want the trash and as far as I\u2019m concerned the city is letting them put it off their property onto mine so I\u2019m going to give it back so if the city don\u2019t do something,\u201d said John Watson. <\/p>\n We reached out to the city and asked them to respond to the Watsons\u2019 claim that they are being unfairly cited and that the trash on their property is not theirs.<\/p>\n You can read their response below:<\/p>\n The Municipal Code Compliance Division addresses nuisance violations based on the conditions observed during a property inspection. Property owners are responsible for maintaining their property in compliance with city code, including the removal of trash, debris, and other nuisance conditions located on the parcel.<\/p>\n When violations such as trash, debris, or illegal dumping are observed, the responsibility for cleaning and maintaining the property falls on the property owner. If debris is observed on a property during an inspection, a notice of violation may be issued to the property owner regardless of how the debris came to be there.<\/p>\n The city notes that as of Monday afternoon, 617 Melba Street has not been abated for nuisance violations.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Two men say they were wrongfully cited by the city of Jacksonville over trash they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,9024,28,348,116,351,118,117,349,350,20349,346,345],"class_list":{"0":"post-185204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-cbs47","10":"tag-city-of-jacksonville","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-fox30","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-jacksonville-fl","15":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","16":"tag-jacksonville-news","17":"tag-northeast-florida","18":"tag-southeast-georgia","19":"tag-trash","20":"tag-wfox","21":"tag-wjax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}