An abandoned house is forcing NE Harris County tenants to move

Harris County, Texas – David Mercado shows KPRC 2 Rilwan Balogun and Gil Gredinger around his home in northeast Harris County and points out areas in his neighbor’s yard that he paid to clean up.

“I’m trying to clean up the fence line a little bit. However, the hypertrophy still occurs,” Mercado explained. “It’s a constant fight. I can’t keep cleaning up other people’s property when that person should be doing it.”

He reported seeing snakes, possums and rats entering his property from a neighboring abandoned house.

“I’ve already caught about 10 to 15 opossums,” Mercado said, wondering how the situation has affected his quality of life and rental business.

Mercado’s former tenant stopped by the house when he moved out and shared with Balogun that he had lost track of the rat poisonings and exterminators who were paid to deal with the rodents.

Mercado said he sent two complaints to the Harris County Tax Assessor’s Office but has not heard back from them.

A spokesman for the office said there was nothing they could do because the property owner had paid the taxes.

“The Harris County Revenue Agency website includes contact information for reporting nuisances to help customers find local government departments that could help,” the statement reads. “Because the role of the Internal Revenue Service is to collect property taxes, we offer potential tax sale purchasers the opportunity to report delinquent, abandoned properties. In the case of (real estate), taxes are paid in full.”

“I understand he has already paid his taxes,” Mercado said. “They are current because I wanted to buy it from him, but he had already paid the taxes, so I couldn’t do anything about it.”

KPRC 2 reached out to Harris County Public Health and Environmental Protection authorities and Commissioner Adrian Garcia for comment but did not hear back.

One potential solution Mercado proposed is for the county to take action against negligent property owners, such as cleaning up abandoned properties and placing a lien on them to recover the costs.

“I would like (the county) to contact the owner and ask them to clean up the property as soon as possible. Don’t delay,” he urged.