HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – Weeks after David Mercado walked KPRC 2 around his northeast Harris County home to share the toll a neighboring abandoned property has taken on his quality of life and rental business, he was thrilled to share some positive updates.
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Back in October, KPRC 2’s Rilwan Balogun and Gil Gredinger went out to the home, where Mercado pointed out snakes, possums, and rats making their way from a neighboring abandoned home in his neighbor’s yard he paid to clear.
“I try to clean it up a little on the fence line. But still, the overgrowth continues to come over,” he explained. “It’s a constant battle. I can’t constantly clean somebody else’s property when they should be doing it.”
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Mercado said he sent two complaints to the Harris County Tax Assessor’s Office but didn’t hear back from them.
The office spokesperson said there’s nothing they can do because the property owner paid the taxes.
“The Harris County Tax Office website provides nuisance reporting contact information to help customers find the local government departments that could possibly help,” the statement said. “Since the role of the Tax Office is collecting property taxes, we do offer potential tax sale buyers the ability to report delinquent abandoned property. In the case of [the property] the taxes are paid in full.”
Shortly after the report, Mercado spoke with KPRC 2 digital producer Ahmed Humble, moments before Rilwan went out to revisit the area, to find out what has happened since.
He said Rilwan shared helpful advice with Mercado, including calling the Health Department.
“He cared because he walked with me throughout the whole property because my property goes lined up with his property and abandoned property all the way,” he explained. “And he walked all the way down, he looked at it and I explained to him and he said, ‘You cleaned this up?’ I said, ‘Yeah, but I don’t have to be cleaning up everybody, you know, somebody else’s property, right?‘”
Mercado ended up emailing Harris County Pct. 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia and that’s when the ball started rolling.
“He sent out a deputy commissioner out here, and he came out and started investigating,” he said over the phone. “He found the property owner -- or the relative who owns the property and told them they had several days to start cleaning up or he’s going to have to step in and start invading the property himself...they started this week.”
With respect to the rapid changes and the helpful advice, Mercado told KPRC 2 how grateful he was for Rilwan’s assistance.
“He’s the one who encouraged me to go ahead and start pursuing all the avenues looking where I can get this situation rolling,” he said. “Because it’s been 10 years. I owned this property for 10 years - my dad owned it for another 10 years. And this property has been like this forever.”
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After countless times picking up possums, and other unwanted animals, Mercado mentioned he felt relieved to see the progress being made.
“I feel great,“ Mercado said. ”I tell you. I mean, Channel 2 has done wonders for me. I mean, I’ve never seen it like this — this clean so far. It’s about 70% cleaned.”
Mercado hopes the property will be at 100% by the end of the month and one of his first tenants will be his daughter, but wants to ensure she can live comfortably.
"She wants to move in, I said, ‘Sure, but let’s wait till the property’s cleaned up because I don’t want you to, you know, battle with rats and rodents and possums,‘“ he said. ”Matter of fact, I caught a possum yesterday, and I released them into the wild."
Thankfully, Mercado’s days of catching and releasing rodents and possums will be over soon and he can get back to living his life.
In the meantime, he wants Houstonians to remember a few lessons he learned through this experience of holding Harris County officials accountable.
“If you can continue, stay with it OK? Never give up. I mean, we have rights,” Mercado said. “You got property rights if you are paying your property, other neighbors are also paying the property taxes, we have the right to have them clean and keep their property clean. Not to abandon the properties, keep them clean, make sure the area and the neighborhood are clean.” Commissioner Adrian Garcia statement
“I am proud to have worked with Sheriff Gonzalez to make this Precinct 2 neighborhood a safer place. I am extremely proud of the success of the nuisance abatement program that I championed to be funded with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) monies. Precinct 2 residents can always call 311 for assistance from my office whenever there is a dangerous property on their block, and we will help any way we can.”
