[oldernittany]

80 year war veteran, whose son is on his fourth deployment in Afghanistan is jailed because he was collecting and selling junk ON HIS OWN PROPERTY to pay for his wife's medications. What country do we live in??

[Larry Lucido]

But EmptychairCare would have made the medication free in two more years.

Or unnecessary.

[Jack Hydrazine]

If only he knew it wasn’t really his property.

[Gay State Conservative]

Particularly with a widower of that age one can wonder about his neurological and/or psychiatric status.I understand why neighbors want tidy yards (for property values purposes) but I'll wager that there was another way to handle this.For example,they could have hired a service to clean the yard and put that bill as a lien on the house.

[Gay State Conservative]

Ooops,misread the piece...thought his wife was deceased.Still probably an overreaction on the part of the city.

[JoeDetweiler]

Ok, I’ve gotta little problem with this quote....

“...I got no problem with the ‘po-lice....”

My family hails from West Virginia and they (and I) sometimes pronounce words a little “funny.” But if this guy had been an African-American and spoke with a poor “Black dialect,” do you think they would have drawn attention to it this way?

Same for Mexican or Asian ar any other “funny” dialect.

[Cicero]

The picture won’t post here, but just click on it at the link to enlarge it.

I don’t know. Is that what they call “junk”? I should think he could get away with calling it outdoor art. And the lawn looks extremely neat and well-mowed, too.

Nasty neighbors, I’d say.

[discostu]

Is it messy or organized? Can you see it from nearby properties? Is there odor? Do pest creatures live and breed in it? Just because it’s your property doesn’t give you the right to be a nuisance.

[VanDeKoik]

I dont care what he was a veteran of, if his yard was full of junk (which can be anything from scrap metal to actual bags of trash), strewn about in heaps, and the city catches you, you’re screwed.

He didn’t heed warnings from the town and in the end though a rush fix would take the heat off.

Everyone there seems to have been bending over backwards to help him out. He should take them up on it.

[Minnesota fox]

Bastards.

[Tamzee]

The case began when the city told him he couldn't run a junkyard from his residence, he was found guilty of refusing to clean it up in January and then the judge gave him several more months to do so and pay a $500 fine. The city has even been taking it away for him if he brings it to the curb.

It sounds to me like he is just another sad case of a classic mentally ill hoarder that refuses to follow the law...