Visually-impaired Toledoans can’t enjoy yard because of neglected neighboring property

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - “It took a year. Maybe a little bit more,” says Kevin Perrine.

It took a year for ivy to take over his neighbor’s yard from top to bottom. It has even grown all the way up to the utility lines. Perrine says he’s been calling the city to clean it up for 8-9 months. In that time, the city has left one note on the door. It was a 72-hour warning to the homeowner to clean up, or the city would take over.

“Now they claim that they’re going to take care of it, but we haven’t seen anyone, and that’s been over a month,” says Perrine.

Perrine has a fire pit in his backyard and likes to entertain, but these days, he stays indoors for fear he could be entertaining unwelcome guests.

“My wife and I are both visually impaired, blind, and we can’t do a lot of things out here because there’s snakes, and rats and other things that come through the fence,” says Perrine.

He has tried to block access, plugging holes in the fence as they come up, but the weight of the overgrowth keeps pulling down the divider. So he and his wife are left wondering what critters could be lurking in the shadows.

“If one were to crawl at our feet right now, you might be able to see it, but I wouldn’t,” he says.

To deal with the problem, Perrine has hired a landscaper to keep the vines from growing into his yard - a cost he takes on with a limited income. He also stays indoors hoping that at some point the homeowner or the city will step up to clean the mess.

“My wife and I have been living here for multiple years, and all those years, we’ve been paying taxes ... and then we have to put up with this? It just doesn’t seem right to me,” he says.

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