News

Mountain Home neighbors relieved that county removed 'chronic public nuisance'

Randy Robinson points to a neighboring lot that the county cleared this week.

By Bill Moss, Published: October 25, 2019

MOUNTAIN HOME — Neighbors of a mobile home that the county declared a public nuisance rejoiced Thursday that years of appeals had finally led to action, in the form of a cleared lot with nothing left but an outdoor deck and an idle trackhoe.

 "We've been fighting this for four years," next door neighbor Randy Robinson said, pointing to a lot now cleared of smelly garbage and of drug paraphernalia.

The clearing of the mess came after Henderson County Attorney Russ Burrell and Code Enforcement Services Director Toby Linville reported on the case at a meeting of the Board of Commissioners last week. The trailer, owned by a convicted felon currently serving time in state prison, had no water, sewer or garbage service and no electricity.

A leaky shed and yard filled with garbage "goes well beyond our definition of what accepted outdoor storage is," Linville told the commissioners. The county brought ciminal charges for the problem in 2016 and won in court. "Criminal violations don’t clean up the property unfortunately," Linville said. "So we’re here before you today to clean it up ourselves.”
Commissioners wanted to make sure the county had done everything in its power to notify the property owner and give her the opportunity to remedy the problem.

“This is the worst one,” Linville said. “I do my very best to not bring them to you but at times we hit a wall where the owner will not do what’s right.”

Commissioners declared the property owner a "chronic violator of the public nuisance ordinance" and authorized Linville to hire a contractor to demolish the trailer and shed and haul the debris and garbage to the dump. The low bidder, Greene's Grading and Excavating, did the job for $2,800. That cost, plus a $1,463.20 landfill fee, will be attached as a tax lien on the property deed.

Robinson and other neighbors said the trailer's primary resident was Peter Allan "Pete" Beveridge, the father of the property's owner of record, Amanda Marie Beveridge. Pete Beveridge, 49, no longer has a home on Piney Ridge Road but for now he doesn't need one. He's in the Henderson County jail awaiting trial on a misdemeanor larceny charge brought Oct. 15. He was charged with habitual larceny in March.

Amanda Beveridge, 26, has been arrested 30 times since May 2017 on charges ranging from felony larceny, possession of methamphetamine and simple assault, according to Henderson County sheriff's office records. Since June she has been serving a 19-month sentence at a state prison in Wadesboro after she was convicted on charges of felony breaking and entering, possession of stolen property and possession of schedule II narcotics.

Henderson County tax records show that the owner bought the property in June 2014 for $25,000. The one-third acre lot and trailer were valued at $49,400 on the tax rolls.

Neighbors said Pete Beveridge and his friends had made noise and caused numerous problems into the early morning hours for the past four years.

"I've lived here 27 years and I never had to put my phone on speed dial to the sheriff's office until they moved here," Robinson said. "We finally sent a letter to the county commissioners back in the summer signed by everybody out here."

A shed that had large holes in its roof was piled high with garbage.

"We felt like we were being poisoned" when Beveridge burned garbage, said Aaron Coffin, the next-door neighbor on the other side. "On a hot summer day, especially after it rained, the stench would be so bad we couldn't even go outside the house."

Mike Williams, a Henderson County zoning enforcement officer, drove out to Piney Ridge Drive on Thursday to check on the progress of the site cleanup, and this time the neighbors have him a hero's welcome. "We owe him a  debt of gratitude," Robinson said. His wife, Suzi, added, "This man put up with me for four years."

"That's why we do it," Linville said when told that the Piney Ridge Road lot clearing had made a lot of neighbors happy.