WEST JORDAN, Utah — With high temperatures expected this weekend and several recent fires across Utah, fire risk is front and center for many homeowners.
West Jordan homeowner Randy Edginton said the property next door hasn't been properly maintained and that he tried multiple times to get the city to address the issue.
According to Edginton, the lot has sat empty since a house burned down about five years ago. Since then, dry grass, weeds and trees have continued to grow, raising concerns about the risk of fire.
Edginton said the city cleared the property once, but the overgrowth quickly returned.
“West Jordan came back a year later and cleaned everything out and made it nice, and then the year after that, the weeds obviously were back, and I called and I went online and put in the request to have them come mitigate the weeds. Nothing happened,” Edginton said.
He said he contacted the city again in May as the weeds continued to spread. After following up a second time, he said he was told a work order had finally been created.
"I said, 'Well, these trees are growing into my garage. This is a fire hazard, and I've got things in the garage I don't want to lose,' and I asked her, 'Can I go cut the trees down?'” he said.
That answer was no, and that cutting the trees himself would be considered trespassing.
"There's enough value inside the garage that I couldn't replace it. And I don't think that it's fair that my property is at risk and West Jordan drags their feet and does nothing about it when it's kind of their responsibility," he said.
Edginton said he’s not the only one concerned about the property in the neighborhood and said other neighbors have volunteered to help cut it down.
FOX13 News reached out to the city of West Jordan about this situation and where things stand.
They let us know that we would need to file an open records request to get that information, which can take days.
