BOARDMAN — Residents of a local neighborhood say they have had it with a dilapidated house in their midst and they want trustees to act.

The house at 727 Truesdale Road is not occupied — unless you count the suspected raccoon infestation — and has fallen into severe disrepair. Residents say the house has been not only a nuisance, but a danger. They say they have waited long enough and they want it condemned.

“This owner … just absolutely has to be brought into compliance. It’s ridiculous,” said Mary Davis of 759 Truesdale. “We have to look at it every day. We’re reasonably sure that with the flooding, and the house being all closed up, that it’s full of black mold and it’s falling apart. It looks terrible.”

The Mahoning County Auditor’s website states that Mark Russell is the owner of 727 Truesdale, a roughly $100,000 home on one-third of an acre.

A large portion of the front roof is covered with moss and sticks, branches obstruct the driveway, the paint is peeling heavily from the exterior garage wall on the southwest side of the house, and there is a large hole in the rear porch roof that needs to be sealed again.

Beth Duzzny, assistant zoning director for Boardman Township, said Russell has been cited multiple times for repeated violations, to the extent that he has reached the maximum allowable fine by Ohio Revised Code, which is $1,000. Previous fines began at $250 and escalated up to $500 and $750 before maxing out.

He has paid $2,500 in fines so far, and every subsequent violation will come with another $1,000 fine.

Duzzny said the problems began at least nine years ago when she took over Boardman’s property maintenance program, and since then, the zoning office and Boardman Fire Department have made more than 100 visits to investigate the property — the list easily exceeds two printed pages.

Duzzny said Russell also had more than 40 complaints against him for high grass, though many of those are older cases. She still put the property on an auto-renew cycle for regular township lawn maintenance so that residents did not have to repeatedly call and complain.

“We are trying every avenue that we can within our system to get compliance or some sort of communication with the property owner. Unfortunately, about two to three years ago, communication ceased,” she said. “We’re still trying everything we can.”

Duzzny said the township cannot label the property vacant because Russell is still listed as the owner of record, receives mail at the house and his voter registration still lists it as his address.

The township just placed new emergency abatement orders on the house for contractors to come clean the yard of branches, and put another tarp and plywood on the rear patio roof hole. The township incurs the cost and places tax liens on the property in hopes of recouping the money.

However, residents say those are not the only issues they’re worried about. They say wildlife of all kinds run in and out of the house and it is likely to sustain more damage and even cause damage to their homes.

A large branch is likely to fall onto the roof after a recent storm, said Dan Naughton, who lives next door at 723 Truesdale.

“You don’t want to go outside because you smell mold and dead animals,” he said. “Over the summer, the water tank burst and they had to turn the water off to the house. I think the heater was left on in the garage. It’s a safety hazard, it’s an eyesore, it’s an embarrassment.”

Georgeann Dorbish, who lives two doors down on the other side, at 735 Truesdale, said she’s seen raccoons going into the house and woodpeckers also are making holes on either side of it.

“I’m embarrassed to have my family and friends over, because when we’re in our backyard, all you can smell and see is the house,” she said. “The paint is totally off the one side we see all the time. And I know it’s lead paint because the houses were built in the 1950s.”

Trustee Steve Yacovone said the township has continued to look into the problem. The fire department, along with Duzzny, completed another investigation on March 19, finding that while it is a nuisance, the house remains structurally sound from what they can see on the outside.

Fire Chief Mark Pitzer said neither his department nor the Mahoning County Board of Health can enter the house without permission.

Yacovone said trustees will reach out to the health department again, in coordination with Truesdale residents who said they too will call.

“That’s what local government is here for. We’re going to do what we can to assist you, because we don’t want eyesores in Boardman Township either,” he said. “Since we were made aware of this issue, we’ve had multiple people working on it to see what we can do, and what has been done.”

One thing he said the township cannot do is foreclose on the house, because the property taxes are paid. The problem is similar to another that trustees have dealt with in the past few months..

Recently, the township passed a resolution to order the condemnation and demolition of a neglected apartment building on Oles Avenue. The elderly resident, unable to manage her own affairs, was placed in the care of Compass Family and Community Services in Youngstown. Recently-elected Boardman Trustee Matt Gambrel is the attorney for Compass in that case. Compass effectively took possession of the property and is hoping to sell it among the woman’s other assets to recoup the cost of her care. Trustees made an agreement that whoever buys the property has a limited time to bring it up to code or it will be demolished.

But Davis said she and other residents are not satisfied that the township is so helpless.

She notes that Ohio Revised Code does not exempt a property owner from having their property condemned just because taxes are up to date.

“Local governments can still condemn the structure if it constitutes a safety hazard, and paying property taxes does not exempt a property from condemnation if it violates local codes,” she said. “In Boardman, a home can be condemned if it is found to be unsafe, unfit for human occupancy or unlawful, regardless of whether property taxes are currently being paid or not.”

This authority comes from ORC 3767.41 and 719.012.