If you’ve got hundreds of tires to dispose of and don’t own a repair shop or race team, you should probably reexamine your life choices. What you shouldn’t do is dump those tires on someone else’s property and force them to clean up your mess.
As reported by KATU, an ABC News affiliate in Portland, Oregon, local resident Khanh Tran arrived at his recently purchased 1.2-acre property in the city this past weekend with plans of fixing it up. He was confronted with piles of tires stacked up to six feet high. And while the county government is looking for the culprit, it’s unable to help with the cleanup.
“The reason I wanted to buy this property, I think it’s in a beautiful location,” explained Tran, who purchased the land in April. “I didn’t know the disaster that was going to come with it.”
Video from the news station shows tires everywhere. A reporter touring the site said the tires block most of the property and that some had been stacked “to create a makeshift room complete with a table and chairs.” The tires have reportedly been accumulating for months, but Tran doesn’t know where they’re coming from. He and neighbor Heather Harmon speculate that someone is collecting them from local businesses in the guise of a recycling service and dumping them with help from squatters, although no one has been spotted in the act.
“I don’t know if they’re doing it overnight, or while I’m at work,” Harmon told KATU. “I’m worried about something catching on fire and spreading across into my yard and my property.”
In February, the property had a single pile of tires numbering less than 40, according to Tran. He said he arranged with the seller to have them removed, but on a subsequent visit in March, they were still there. When he returned to the property on June 6, Tran found the current unmanageable stacks of tires, which he estimates piled up in “no more than 90 days.”
Portland homeowner finds property buried under massive illegal tire dump: 'I'm worried about fire'
The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the mess as a potential act of trespassing and “offensive littering.” Meanwhile, local agencies are investigating the environmental impact of the tire dump, which violates Oregon rules for the disposal of tires. A Portland government spokesperson told KATU that illegal tire dumping is “a growing issue” in the city, with 14,000 tires picked up from public property in the past year—5,600 in May alone.
Tran started a GoFundMe for the tire removal, as he’s unlikely to get help from the city. Trash removal services cannot remove items from private property, a spokesperson told KATU, adding that those services don’t have the resources to deal with this cleanup. The county will revisit the issue if the dumpers aren’t found and Tran is unable to remove the tires himself, the spokesperson said. And given the circumstances, the county is waiving fines even though property owners are legally responsible for their property and what’s on it.
So whether it’s tires or car batteries, always properly dispose of your trash. Otherwise, you’re just creating a mess for someone else to clean up.