Nuisance homes: Proposed solution for Snohomish County drug houses

When Snohomish County Councilmember Nate Nehring rode along with deputies recently, he visited a house that stands out among the region’s nuisance homes. Police are familiar with it. They are often called to the house for reports of drugs, firearms violations, and other crimes.

The home in Bryant is a source of frustration for neighbors, and police who say there is little they can legally do. Councilmember Nehring hopes to change that with a recently-drafted bill he plans to introduce soon.

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“I think one of the issues, in talking with law enforcement officers, is there really is no teeth behind the laws which exist,” Nehring told KTTH’s Jason Rantz. “There is really no way to enforce it.”

“This law wouldn’t create any new rules, but it would give flexibility in enforcing the existing rules,” he said. “It outlines a process for voluntary abatement and mandatory abatement.”

Abatement meaning that owners of nuisance homes can voluntarily clean up their property before the county will take additional measures.

“On several of the properties that we are dealing with in North Snohomish County … most of them are bank-owned; you have an owner who is absent from the property and you have a tenant or just squatters on the property causing issues,” Nehring said. “And through the current process, the owner doesn’t really care; they are just getting a check and have no skin in the game for getting the property cleaned up.”

“What this process would do is if a property is determined to be a nuisance – if there are crimes being committed and there is a record of that through law enforcement – a warning will be sent to the property owner, and they could face up to $100-a-day in fines if the property isn’t cleaned up. It outlines a process for abatement and builds a case for it.”

Nehring will introduce his bill later this month. It will go through the committee process, a public hearing, and on to the full council where he hopes it will pass.

Nehring is the youngest to ever serve on the Snohomish County Council, entering office last year at the age of 21.

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