What does it take to get Baltimore city to remove a mini-mountain of reeking trash on the property of an unresponsive absentee owner?

In the case of 3506 Lyndale Avenue, standard procedures failed for more than two years despite the earnest efforts of the Belair-Edison neighborhood, including:

• More than a dozen complaints filed by residents through the city’s 311 tracking system.

• Emailed pleas to city officials for help to remove the heap of debris that gave off an odor of mold and urine and brought back previously eradicated rats.

• Complaints by residents of this northeast Baltimore neighborhood that pushed the city to investigate and issue the property 14 environmental citations and a total of $700 in fines.

But still, the pile – including trashed furniture, a door and a broken television set – remained.

Community members’ hopes were raised earlier this year when the city began to take steps to remove the eyesore. But then, in mid-May, came a hang-up:

Department of Public Works’ machinery was unable to reach the pile to clean it up, residents were told, and more time was needed to develop a logistical plan for the operation.

“It’s frustrating,” said an exasperated Jamila Blake, whose father, Alvin Blake, lived near the garbage pile.

The latest excuse for not fixing this seemingly simple problem left her fuming.

“If you have systems in place and you’re encouraging people to use those systems, then what’s the holdup?” Blake said, speaking with The Brew. “What was with the delay?”

“If you have systems in place and you’re encouraging people to use those systems, then what’s the holdup?”  – Jamila Blake.

The sweltering Baltimore heat only made the pile’s stench worse. Exasperated community members finally took matters into their own hands, making calls to the media and community leaders. Things happened fast after that.

WJZ aired a story on the pile, which Blake then sent to Belair-Edison Community Association President Rita Crews, who then sent it to her contacts at the Living Classrooms Foundation.

Within days, members of the nonprofit’s workforce development program, Project SERVE, showed up along with other volunteers and hauled away three truckloads of garbage.

It took only a couple of hours.

Why Delay Garbage Day?

In a statement to The Brew, the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) said the city’s slow response was unavoidable, the result of necessary bureaucratic steps that had to be taken.

Because the property is privately owned and is not currently listed as vacant, the department said, “the responsibility is first on the owner to mitigate violations and not taxpayers.”

Work orders, charges to the property owner for work done by the city, and accumulated fines and fees are “necessary steps to take as property owners have legal rights and due process is required concerning private property matters,” the statement read.

Alvin Blake, a retiree who spends his time now volunteering in the community, lives about two houses away from the pile. He said he’s glad the mess is gone.

It was a health hazard and fire hazard, and it stopped the community from enjoying their own backyards, he told The Brew.

“People will be able to actually sit out in their yard now, have their cookout, do those types of things,” Blake said. “People around here couldn’t do any of that because of the smell from the trash.”

He may be relieved, but his daughter remains upset about the city’s failure to assist taxpaying citizens who followed the rules.

“People in this area deserve fairness, and if they see an issue like this and they’re taking the proper protocol, which is calling 311, why aren’t you following up?” Jamila Blake said.

“Is that fair to the people that have to smell that trash, to have to live around that?” she continued. “It’s unacceptable.”

2½ Years of 311 Calls

Residents say they have tried to reach the homeowner, listed in state records as Esther Hines, but haven’t seen her in years.

The Brew could find no contact information for Hines. No one answered when we knocked on the door of the two-story rowhouse recently.

Public records document what happened when the community turned to the city for help.

In early 2024, residents began calling 311, using the app or portal. They filed 11 sanitation complaints – two in 2024, three in 2025 and six in 2026 – before a work order was issued by DHCD to the Department of Public Works on May 11, 2026 to remove the trash.

Between early 2024 and when DHCD sent in the work order the Lyndale property, it racked up 14 citations for code violations including high grass and weeds, trash accumulation and bulk trash.

Another citation was issued in June for a failure to comply with a violation notice.

Before the work order was issued, the property was cited $50 for each citation which added up to $700 in fines. After the additional citation issued in June for not complying with violations, the total accumulated fines for the Lyndale property comes to $950.

Despite the order for removal, the refuse pile remained.

According to the city’s environmental citation database, $150 of the accumulated fines were paid in June 2025, but no other amount has been paid.

Once a 311 unsanitary property complaint is filed, it is routed to the DHCD’s Code Enforcement Division and the house is put on the code enforcement inspector’s list for the day to examine.

If the inspector determines the property violated a city housing code they will issue a notice of the violation and if the owner of the property does not appeal the violation, take action to fix the issue or respond to the notice a citation may be issued.

If the property continues to be in violation of the housing code then the department can decide to step up enforcement actions, which is what occurred at the Lyndale property.

But despite the May work order for removal, the refuse pile remained. It sat until non-city volunteers and a nonprofit carted it away.

Dragging Neighborhoods Down

Community leaders say ugly sights like the backyard of 3506 Lyndale Avenue drag down neighborhoods that are working hard to lift themselves up.

Since 2024, Belair-Edison has seen a 24.7% drop in vacant buildings. Compared to the city’s 6.3% of residential properties either vacant or abandoned, Belair-Edison’s 2% sits well below it.

The pile stood out in a neighborhood that has only seen one other property accumulating 10 or more DHCD trash citations since 2024, according to citation data collected by The Brew.

That’s why, Crews said, city leaders should care about a mess like the one in the back of 3506 Lyndale Avenue and act quickly to eliminate it.

“It gives the community a black eye,” Crews said. “It makes people say, ‘Oh, that’s a nasty community, that’s a horrible community,’ which is not the case.”