Health Department looks to clamp down on ‘absent’ landlords in Dundee
Neglected properties have become a hideout for criminals in the CBD, say local residents.
The local Health Department has reacted to countless pleas from residents about the many overgrown properties (especially in the Dundee CBD) that have become ‘hangouts for undesirables’. Rene Taljaard and Eventide Home were two complainants whose plight the Courier has highlighted on several occasions.
On Monday, representatives of the Health Department visited the properties in Ann Street, Boundary Road and Beaconsfield Street. The owners of the neglected properties are to be served with notices warning them to take steps to maintain the erfs by cutting the long grass and bush where, in some cases, criminals take cover.
Eventide Home in Beaconsfield Street has long been forced to cope with ‘choking smoke’ coming from a neglected property across the road, where squatters have moved in. In Boundary Road, opposite the police station, a house that fell into disuse during the COVID-19 pandemic has been taken over by so-called ‘paras’ (vagrants), who use it as a hideout. In many cases, those who ‘lurk’ in the CBD have been linked to the theft of copper wiring / infrastructure and other crimes.
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