HONESDALE, PA — His voice breaking with emotion at times, borough resident Bill Musgrove described the house next door to his on Freethy Pond Road. Musgrove told the Honesdale Borough Council at its May 16 meeting that he had purchased his current home in 1997, that since 2013 the house next door has been vacant, and that the rapidly deteriorating property has become a public health hazard.

Musgrove told of a house with peeling lead paint and a yard filled with debris that he said was not only an eyesore but a magnet for rodents and mosquitoes.

Turning to code enforcement officer Dan Hnatko, Musgrove said, “Dan can tell you all about it.” Hnatko corroborated Musgrove’s claims, adding that both he and Musgrove had endured vile language from one of the two property owners when talking to them about the condition of their property. Hnatko said he had issued fines for several code violations, but that not all of the issues Musgrove cited fell under property maintenance codes. Among those issues was a jumble of household items collecting in the backyard that included a toilet tank and broken beer bottles, a dilapidated shed in early stage of collapse and a lawn grown into a field.

The last issue was a clear violation of the borough ordinance requiring grass to be kept under six inches tall. Not only had Hnatko repeatedly issued fines for that particular fire hazard, but he eventually ended up mowing it himself, three times. “I don’t want to be in the lawn mowing business, and the borough shouldn’t have to be,” he said.

But to Musgrove’s query about declaring the shed structurally unsafe, Hnatko said only an engineer could make that determination, rendering the process too costly to pursue.

When the council asked for photographic evidence, Musgrove produced it. When it asked Hnatko if the fines and property taxes had been paid, he said yes. And with that, the council told Musgrove that it looked like he had the makings of a nuisance case against his neighbors and that he should consult an attorney about the possibility of filing a civil lawsuit.

As the council moved on to other business, Mayor Melody Robinson followed up on a different nuisance case that was before the council at last week’s meeting. Late-night noise outside a senior residence was the focus of that case; the information Robinson provided was the particulars of a noise ordinance in force in the borough of Lewisburg, where Robinson recently held a council seat.

Per Robinson, the Lewisburg ordinance set overnight noise level limits at 55 decibels for residential neighborhoods. Some council members said that limit was relatively low, Bill Canfield noting that trucks delivering goods to Dave’s Super Duper at night would be in violation if a similar ordinance were adopted in Honesdale. Again the council tabled the idea of a noise ordinance.

Honesdale Fire Chief Steve Bates raised two topics of concern: the size of mortars to be used in fireworks displays within the borough and the necessity of HIV testing for new firefighters. Delegating authority to Bates to limit mortar size per his discretion, the council decided it is no longer necessary for new firefighters to undergo HIV tests prior to assuming active duty.