West Rock Junk Cleanup: West Shepard Ave.

West Shepard Avenue Junk Piles

This annotated aerial photo from the 2019 Hamden GIS maps shows the former privately owned property at 574 West Shepard Avenue rear as highlighted in gray. The green arrow points to an area of state property that the former property owner cleared. The logs visible in 2006 are long gone. The red arrow points to the junk pile on state land with the white PVC pipes clearly visible. The road is incorrectly labeled as Baldwin Drive. The GIS maps list three properties as all being  574 West Shepard Avenue Rear: two on the west side of West Shepard Avenue, and one on the east side .

Various parts of West Rock Ridge State Park have been negatively affected by dumping. One page on this site focuses on the junkyard formerly off the Red Trail near Mountain Road. Another page discusses Baldwin Drive. This page discusses two junk areas off West Shepard Avenue.

 

Off West Shepard Avenue, the smaller junk area about 0.1 acres in size is located on the west side of the road, 0.05 miles north of the gate by Rayzoe Terrace. To keep anything from growing, someone placed two-inch thick foam insulation pads on the ground in the entire area. The PVC pipes placed there can easily be seen in the aerial photos from the Hamden GIS maps prior to the cleanup I organized.

The larger of these two areas is about 0.3 acres in size, on the east side of West Shepard Avenue, about 0.15 miles north of the gate at the junction with Rayzoe Terrace, opposite the driveway to the boarded-up house. This area is now heavily infested with invasive plants, including prickly multi-flora rose, thorny wineberry, aromatic garlic mustard, and mostly the mugwort reed.

When the homeowner on West Shepard Avenue was still alive, he would pile stumps and brush at the junction with the gravel Sanford Road, as seen on Oct. 31, 2009. These stumps and logs are long gone by 2025. To the left is the pile of rocks at the end of Baldwin Drive (not seen in this picture). I dug out a carpet about 16 feet long by 4 feet wide in March 2025.

The West Shepard Avenue junk piles were created by the former homeowner at 574 West Shepard Avenue Rear, the house on the west side of the road between the gate by Rayzoe Terrace and Baldwin Drive. The homeowner was described by those who knew him as a “character” who did what he wanted and was using state land for his own purposes, cutting down trees, clearing areas for his personal use, and allowing contractors to dispose of the larger items.

As I have been involved with this cleanup, I talk with people who walk the road, and ask them if they knew the homeowner. Those who knew him said that he allowed the dumping to take place. For anyone, I want them to know that the wood and trash they see along the road are part of a cleanup in the woods, and that these are not freshly dumped items.

One hiking friend said he spoke to the man during the 1990s who told him that he would charge people to drop off the wood, but his cost was less than they would pay at the transfer station. He would process them into firewood to sell. The friend said the homeowner told him he had to sell about eight cords of firewood to sell to make it worth his while. He would also keep wood for use at his house.

Another hiking friend said the homeowner showed him the deer heads during the early 2000s that he had mounted in his barn, which he had shot in another state. However, there are stories from park users who knew him that he was hunting at West Rock where hunting is illegal. As further proof of this, there are two hunting tree stands in the woods between the house and Baldwin Drive.

Those who have taken a closer look at the house, including one of the property surveyors, said it has neither a sewer connection, nor a septic tank, just a pipe int the yard.

 
A metal tree stand used for hunting rests against a tree west of the house as seen in December 2022, and is a few hundred feet west of a wooden tree that that was partially collapsed.

The homeowner died in 2011 and the family let the property just sit there before Citibank and subsequently the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) took possession in 2017. The state of Connecticut wanted to add the 3.23-acre property to the park, but there was at a stalemate for years over the required paperwork to complete the sale. Apparently, Fannie Mae had certain forms it wanted completed and the state, being the state, had its own way of doing things, and the two sides could not agree, so the property remained unsold.

The stalemate was broken in 2023 when an anonymous donor fronted the $80,000 needed for the West Rock Ridge Park Association to buy the property, which it did on January 12, 2023. The association, in turn, sold the property to the state on March 30, 2023, filling a gap in state property ownership in that area. While the association owned the property, volunteers removed much of the remaining items left in the yard in the immediate area of the house and barn.

The state plans to tear down the house and barn as there no use for it. I am not aware of any specific timeline as to when this will happen. Typically for the state of Connecticut, such actions take a long time.

Fifty-gallon drums and a couch are among the items on the property between the house and barn that were removed by volunteers from the West Rock Ridge Park Association in winter 2023, seen here in October 2019. While an eyesore, at least these items were on the homeowner's property.

Once the state took ownership, it placed a lock on the gate to keep out people from driving up the road. One person took exception to the lock and apparently cut off the lock and painted words on the sign complaining about the illegal lock. Apparently someone from the state talked to him about it because the lock was replaced and left undamaged, and the state also painted over what he wrote. While the gate was open, someone twice dragged a large rock off the barrier to Baldwin Drive that Hamden had placed there on the state's behalf to keep ATVs and other vehicles off Baldwin Drive. That rock has not been put back, but rests off to the side.

West Shepard Avenue West Side Junkpile

Having done trail work at West Rock since 2007 and having hiked and bicycled at the park since the 1990s, I had seen the junk pile on the west side of West Shepard Avenue. I never met the homeowner who lived there, but I certainly have seen the things left behind, presumably by him.

The 25.79-acre property on the west side of the road was owned by a family member until the state purchased it on June 20, 2008. At that point, any items left in the area should have been removed, but they were not.

I worked on the project on the west side of the road starting in January 2018 and worked on it periodically through the year, mostly by myself and occasionally with help from others. I then did nothing on this project again until one visit in September 2021 and another in May 2022. Finally, I returned to project on a more regular basis with five visits from October and November 2022.

 

With those visits, I pulled up the foam insulation placed on the ground to keep things from growing, as I collected the trash and stacked the bricks. I carried out bags and buckets filed with trash for proper disposal off-site. In 2018, another volunteer removed a truckload of junk, including some of the larger items.

 

In November 2022, I used a hand truck to wheel down to the West Shepard Avenue gate the larger items for collection by the state. This included PVC pipes, a cut up telephone pole with metal foot pegs, the sides to a wooden trailer, a metal bedframe, and plenty of rotted wood.

 

The last major item to remove from this junk pile took place on Jan. 1, 2023, when another volunteer and I rolled out a metal tank to the gate. Someone had taken most of the PVC pipes from November 2022, but the rest of the items were still there. I listed them on the Hamden See, Click, Fix site, and the town of Hamden quickly took them away.

 

Prior to moving items to the gate, someone had taken about half the bricks from the pile. The remaining 100 bricks I wheeled up West Shepard Avenue and placed them in a wash out section of road where they were soon covered by gravel pushed into the gully by rainstorms.

The junk pile south of the property at 574 West Shepard Ave. is clearly visible in this aerial view from the 2007 Hamden GIS maps. The map incorrectly labels the road as Baldwin Drive.

The junk pile south of the property at 574 West Shepard Ave. is still visible in this aerial view from the 2016 Hamden GIS maps, eight years after the state purchased the property. The map incorrectly labels the road as Baldwin Drive.

The pile is no longer visible in this 2023 aerial view from the Hamden GIS maps after it was cleaned up by volunteers. The map incorrectly labels the road as Baldwin Drive.

The total junk removed included the following: 38 buckets of trash with bottles, cans, and pieces of foam insulation, 120 gallon-sized flowerpots, 12 car tires, 15 PVC pipes about 10 feet in length, 15 sheets of foam insulation, three metal grates, a comforter, two plastic bins, a pile of bricks 4 feet by 4 feet by 3 feet high, cut up section of telephone pole, wood sides to a trailer, boards covered with chicken wire, metal bedframe, and metal oil tank.

The junkyard off West Shepard Avenue is partially cleaned up and organized on July 22, 2018.

An oil tank rests under a tree behind trash, bricks, and planting pots in the junkyard off West Shepard Avenue on July 22, 2018.

Bricks have been piled and planter pots gathered in the junkyard off West Shepard Avenue on July 22, 2018.

A tarp, cut up pieces of a telephone pole, and a metal tank from the junkyard off West Shepard Avenue awaited collection at the gate to the road by Rayzoe Terrace on Jan. 1, 2023. They were removed by the town of Hamden.

The former junkyard off West Shepard Avenue has all major pieces of junk removed and the area can now regenerate, as seen Jan. 1, 2023.

Junk Pile East of West Shepard Avenue

The 12.56-acre property on the east side of West Shepard Avenue was purchased by the state on Aug. 14, 1986, so there should have been no question this was not private property. The metal storage container and a metal trailer for hauling items behind a car were the obvious items that did not belong in the state park. Little else was visible from the road due to the downslope and the heavy covering of the invasive reed called mugwort.

This aerial view from the 2007 Hamden GIS maps shows piles of logs on West Shepard Avenue at the junction with Baldwin Drive and also along the east side of West Shepard Avenue. 
Website: https://hamden.mapxpress.net/ags_map/

This spring 2004 aerial photo from shows the cleared area opposite the barn (top) and house (bottom) at 574 West Shepard Ave.

This 2006 aerial photo from the Hamden GIS maps clearly shows a large pile of logs opposite the barn (top) and house (bottom) at 574 West Shepard Ave. The map incorrectly labels the road as Baldwin Drive.

This 2007 aerial photo from the Hamden GIS maps shows piles of logs at the edge of the area with the center completely cleared of any plant life. The map incorrectly labels the road as Baldwin Drive.

This spring 2008 aerial photo from the state aerial maps shows the open area east of West Shepard Avenue with two vehicles near piles of what may be logs, but is difficult to determine due to the fuzziness of the image.

This spring 2012 aerial photo from the state aerial maps shows the open area east of West Shepard Avenue with assorted debris left behind, following the death of the homeowner in 2011.

The next aerial photo on the Hamden GIS site maps is from 2013, which shows the area cleared of logs and still without any plant life, along with assorted junked items. The metal storage trailer by the road is now clearly visible.

After the 2013 photo, the image from the Hamden GIS maps jumps to 2016 shows plant life growing and starting to hide the dumped items. The map incorrectly labels the road as Baldwin Drive.

In this 2023 image from the Hamden GIS maps, trees are visible and plant life growing and hiding the dumped items even more than in 2016. They are most likely hidden beneath the mat of the invasive mugwort reed. The roof of the storage trailer that appeared white in the 2016 photo now is brown, due to being covered by the native grapevines. The map incorrectly labels the road as Baldwin Drive.

This spring 2023 aerial photo from the state aerial maps shows all the debris left behind the open area east of West Shepard Avenue. The storage cubicle is in the lower left corner. Two wooden cold storage frames are in the center of the photo. To their right is a wooden table, seen as a lighter color. These were broken apart and removed from the area in April 2025. Near the upper right the refrigerator is buried in the ground. To its right is a purple circular object that may be a child's plastic pool.

 

The lack of tree cover is apparent in this summer 2023 aerial photo from the state aerial maps website. On the center left of the photo is the barn. A portion of the house is visible in the lower left bottom of the picture.

In December 2024, I descended the slope off West Shepard Avenue to the east and explored the cleared area. The ground had visibly been substantially altered as evidenced by the slope, the irregular shape of the ground with sharp drop-offs in places, sunken areas, and humps of dirt in the area. I quickly became aware of all the trash and dumped items. In particular, I noticed a wooden cold frame under a non-native honey locust tree, scattered plastic flowerpots, plastic bags filled with household trash, and planks sticking up from the ground at back of the cleared area. During that exploration, I moved some items up to the road, including a pet carrier, a garden hose, and part of car tire.

LIDAR is a method of using a laser to measure topography, in this case elevations. The disturbance in the cleared area east of West Shepard Avenue is in the wavy lines, which are in sharp contrast to the smooth flow of the terrain to the east.
This screenshot comes from the website Connecticut Environmental Conditions Online, which is operated by the University of Connecticut and Connecticut DEEP: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4c801e35f200493ebffddf7b7b10a2e0 

Volunteers began work on the east side area of West Shepard Avenue in January 2025 and continuing into June 2025. We had to dig the boards and metal fence parts out of the ground, which was difficult because it was frozen. The lumber was both in dumped piles and also used as cold frames for growing plants. Another challenge was having to carry the items upslope, which was a good cardiovascular workout. The work also involved cutting away the sharp thorned multi-flora rose, which was growing as high as 12 feet over the lumber in some areas. 

With the thaw in March we were able to dig out many more boards with still more remaining. We left them in a pile near the bottom of the slope to focus on getting as many boards as possible out of the ground. Some of the work involved breaking apart the rotted tree trunks and stumps along the edge of the slope. I worked on partially digging out an appliance that I that thought at first was a clothes dryer, but after another volunteer dug it out of the ground on a different day, we realized it was a gas stove.

Other items we removed included four pickup truck tires, a tractor tire, a motorcycle tire, a 20 foot aluminum ladder, metal fence pipes, metal patio furniture, three metal light fixtures, green metal fence posts for a wire-mesh fence, about 15 five-gallon buckets, two screen doors, two double-paned windows for a house, a kid’s plastic pool, two traffic cones, four 32-gallon plastic barrels, and a white plastic animal trap. One volunteer cut apart the metal trailer and removed the metal to have it recycled. A complete list can be found at the bottom of this page.

I returned multiple times from January to June 2025 to continue to remove items, sometimes with other volunteers and other times on my own. In February, I cut up the larger cold frame and added that wood to the pile along the road. I cut up two more cold frames in April. I also removed all the trash that was in the storage trailer, which included a 30-gallon trash can half-filled with broken glass and about 100 chewing tobacco cans scattered across the floor. With each visit, I fill my car with the trash I find on the property, a mixture of the bags of household trash buried just under the surface, along with the other items I find scattered across the area, including plastic flowerpots and trays.

The trash bags contain lots of green round cans that I presume to be cat food cans because there are also plastic containers for cat treats, one of which said to use by January 2010, and another by March 2010. Other common items in the trash bags are white foam trays commonly used for packaging meat, and Poland Spring water bottles. I wonder why the trash bags were left on the property when Hamden offers free trash pickup to its residents. We were able to remove some of those 30 gallon trash bags, but others still need to be taken away.

Nine volunteers from Quinnipiac University's Big Event and two volunteers from the Appalachian Mountain Club did heroic work in carrying multiple items from the woods on both sides of the road on April 12, 2025. This included lumber, window screen mesh, a roll of vinyl flooring, and a sheet of aluminum.

Most importantly, they carried the the entire pile of lumber up the slope from the east side of the road. This was particularly a challenge because the ground was muddy and slippery from the recent rains. Many of the planks were five-foot lengths of two 2x8 boards bolted together, which were heavy to carry. They had to put down pieces of paving stones and wood from the area to provide the needed footing. Two volunteers carried out the heavy kitchen stove that had taken quite an effort to dig out of the dirt.

They also removed from the woods east of the road a large plastic tarp that I am using to prevent the invasive mugwort from growing. In the same area, they took out a couch and cushions.

Starting in late April, one dedicated volunteer began cutting up the storage cube, using a battery-operated grinding wheel. The storage trailer has aluminum sides with an aluminum roof and there was with a hole in both parts. The frame at the base and the pillars holding up the door are rusty steel. The floor is wood with plenty of rotted boards. The wooden door had rotted sections as well. He was able to cut as much in a day as his battery power allowed. Through June 19, this was 11 sessions. He took away the metal for recycling and will use the wood floor as kindling for his wood stove in the winter.

The wood pile along West Shepard Avenue was removed one car or van load at a time by volunteers and grew smaller by the week. One neighbor stopped by in mid-June and took most of the pile by the gate in his pickup truck. As of June 19, all that remains along the road is the foundation to the storage cube and the wood floor from the cube. By the gate all that is left is a small amount of wood to take away. Through June 19, volunteers spent 215 hours on this cleanup.

There are still plenty of things to remove from the woods, including a refrigerator buried in the dirt, more planks and metal fence pieces sticking up out of the ground, a household furnace, a window air conditioning unit, a metal case crushed under a fallen tree, and bags of household trash. Near the house is one more pile of wood and other items that may be a collapsed chicken coop, which I will leave to the state to remove when it takes down the house and barn.

There is a car engine buried in the ground near the honey locust tree. I remember seeing another one in the ground along the east side of West Shepard Avenue near the transition to the Sanford Feeder Trail that I need to find again. Both need to be dug out and removed. There may be another one in the woods near where West Shepard Avenue meets Baldwin Drive.

Removing items from the woods will resume in late fall after the frost to make sure we do not disturb any yellow jacket nests and get stung. The other challenge is that the invasive mugwort reed and invasive garlic mustard have absolutely blanketed the area, making it difficult to see anything, let alone remove dumped items. Volunteers have been uprooting invasives, but there is so much of it, only so much can be removed in a session.

This page is a work in progress. Details and photos will be added as the project continues.

A pile of pressure treated lumber and steel fencing remain at the back of the downslope about 150 feet east of West Shepard Ave. on Jan. 11, 2025. The lumber in the foreground was moved up to West Shepard Avenue on Feb. 15.

 Volunteers removed more pressure treated lumber and steel fencing from the back of the downslope and returned on April 12, 2025, to continue work on this project.

Looking down from the slope where the wood was buried is another pile of wood that has been pulled out of the dirt and awaits being moved to higher ground, as seen on April 6, 2025. This entire pile and more was moved to West Shepard Avenue by volunteers on April 12, 2025.

The wood pile just above the slope when it was mostly buried under the dirt grows as volunteers remove boards, as seen on April 6, 2025.

These Quinnipiac University students stand by what remains of the pile that they and volunteers from the Appalachian Mountain Club carried up to West Shepard Avenue on April 12, 2025. They carried up the remaining small pieces after the photo was taken.

Two Quinnipiac University students carry a battered kitchen stove from the lower slope to West Shepard Avenue on April 12, 2025.

A water cooler was located downslope about 100 feet east of West Shepard Ave. and was removed on Jan. 11, 2025, and brought to a recycling facility on Feb. 18 for proper disposal.

The remaining wood from a cold frame is located downslope about 100 feet east of West Shepard Ave. on Jan. 11, 2025. This was cut up on Feb. 15 and the wood brought up to the road and then down to the gate on March 8.

This kitchen sink was buried just under the dirt at the back of the pile and was pulled out on April 6, 2025, and will be recycled once it is removed from the area. It was moved to the road on April 12, 2025.

Two wooden cold frames are barely visible under the dried out mugwort and resprouting green mugwort and garlic mustard, midway down the slope off West Shepard Avenue on April 21, 2025. They were dismantled and removed that day.

The wood pile rests midway up the slope off West Shepard Avenue after being pulled from the ground on April 21, 2025, along with flowerpots and metal fence posts. The plastic items were removed for disposal that day. The wood has been moved to the pile along the road, excepting a few boards that are hosting a colony of ants.

An Amana refrigerator is partially excavated from the slope east of West Shepard Avenue on April 21, 2025 with the refrigerator door in the foreground. To the left is one of the five-gallon buckets used by volunteers to remove trash from the woods. The door has been moved up to the road. In June, a volunteer dug out the foam insulation from the door for disposal, allowing another volunteer to remove the metal part recycling. Other interior plastic parts of the refrigerator have been removed for disposal. Further digging has been postponed to late fall after the freeze, as the fast growing mugwort and garlic mustard are covering the area, making it difficult to walk to the site and to dig out the rest of this heavy appliance. A plastic mesh fence, a plastic storage tub, and a plastic tank for storing liquids were successfully removed from the nearby ground. 

What appears to be a couch of some sort was resting on the east slope of West Shepard Avenue for many years before being carried out of the woods  on April 12, 2025, and removed for proper disposal. 

 
Wood and other items remain under a tree near the barn for the property at 574 West Shepard Ave. on April 12, 2025, and will be removed by the state when it demolishes the barn and house.

This view south shows the large pile of wood, the windows, and the water cooler moved to this location from east of West Shepard Ave. on Jan. 11, 2025. The water cooler was carted away by a volunteer on Feb. 17 for recycling on Feb. 18.

This view north shows the pile of junk moved to this location from east of West Shepard Ave. on Jan. 11, 2025. The tires were removed for recycling by a volunteer.

This view south shows the pile of junk moved to this location from east of West Shepard Ave. on Jan. 11, 2025. Most of these items have been taken away by volunteers.

Over multiple work sessions in January and February 2025, with volunteers removing items for proper disposal or recycling, the junk pile has been shrinking as seen here on Feb. 17, 2025. The trailer on which the items rest was cut apart by a volunteer and hauled away as scrap metal on March 8, 2025.

 The pile by the road was a fraction of its size on March 8, as volunteers continued to take away items and brought most of the pile down to the gate for easier removal, and those items were finally taken away in mid-June 2025. The wheelbarrow was removed on March 12, 2o25 for recycling.

The pile was large again on April 13, 2025 after these Quinnipiac University students and volunteers from the Appalachian Mountain Club carried the wood up from the lower slope.

The pile was large again on April 13, 2025.

 
The sink and stove were removed on April 14, 2025, along with other trash, leaving mostly a pile of wood. The gray plastic tub and the gray PVC piping were removed on May 3 after this photo was taken.

 The large pile of wood with the PVC pipes removed frames the storage container on May 4, 2025 with most of the north facing side cut away.

 Boards in the large pile of wood have been cut into manageable sizes for removal on May 28, 2025 with the north facing side of the storage container and most of the south facing side cut away.

The sides of the storage container have been cut away and the west side support have been removed on June 12, 2025.

The storage container was pulled onto its side on June 12, 2025 to allow the roof to be cut.

The wood pile is nearly gone on June 17, 2025, while the sides and roof of the storage container have been cut away.

The rusty metal frame of the storage container is all that is visible on June 19, 2025. The side with the door frame and tracks is laying hidden in the mugwort to the left of the photo. The rolled tarp hides the pile of wood from the storage container floor. The main wood pile has been cleared.

This storage trailer was the most prominent feature of the dumped area along West Shepard Avenue, as seen on April 6, 2025. To the right of the faded image of a chair is a yellow image of a light. Other wording on the trailer is too faded to read.

The late Robert (June 2, 1917-Dec. 3, 1998) and Florence Blosveren (Jan. 2, 1916-Dec. 12, 2010) operated a lamp shop at 420 Winthrop Ave. in the Westville section of New Haven. The Connecticut Secretary of State's website lists the business name as Blosveren Lamp & Spray Shop, which was formed on Oct. 5, 1962. The business as dissolved on April 29, 2021 by the secretary of state due to failure to file annual reports, which it had not done since Nov. 1, 2001. The property at 420 Winthrop Ave. was vacant land in 2025 and was also vacant dating back to 2008 in Google Street Views. A photo of Robert and his daughter Fern is posted to this page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Westville.Village1/posts/i-just-came-across-this-pic-of-big-bob-and-fern-blosvern-at-their-cabana-at-the-/10154739543355965/

Birth and death dates on the couple came from this website:

https://newhaventorahcenter.org/cemetery_index.asp?show=B

The Library of Congress has a phone directory from 1951, which lists the business as being at 1438 Whalley Ave., New Haven. The nearest address in 2025 was the Athenian Plaza at 1440 Whalley Ave.: https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/gdcustel/us/te/le/di/re/c0/45/15/usteledirec04515/usteledirec04515_djvu.txt 

I have asked half a dozen friends who have lived in New Haven for decades and none had any information about the business, and only one person had actually heard of it.

When contacted about the trailer in 2024, a family member said he did not know how the trailer got to West Shepard Avenue and did not want it. Park users said it was likely that the homeowner heard the trailer was available and took it for his own use.

A plate on the lower right corner of the trailer lists the company Clark Equipment, Brown Trailer Division with the cities Reading, PA, Spokane, Wash., and Michigan City, Ind. The website Funding Universe indicates Clark acquired Brown Truck Trailer in 1959. In 2025, the company was named Clark Material Handling and its website states that Brown Trailer Division ceased operations in 1975. The website for Brown Industries states that Brown was purchased by Ashton-Richards Company in 1975 and changed its name to Brown Cargo Van.

These websites lead me to believe the trailer was manufactured some time between 1959 and 1975.

https://www.clarkmhc.com/faq-items/where-can-i-get-parts-and-information-for-a-brown-trailer-built-by-the-clark-equipment-company/

https://bcvi.com/about-us/history/

https://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/clark-equipment-company-history/

A sticker on the trailer shows that it was distributed and serviced by the Connecticut Wheel and Rim Co. of a town that could be Hartford or Stratford, the sticker was partially peeled and the first three letters of the name are missing. According to the Secretary of State's office that business was established in 1933 and dissolved in 1990 with a New Haven post office box used as the filing address.

The storage trailer on Jan. 1, 2025 had a trash barrel on the left half-filled with broken glass, three light fixtures at the back on the left, a mirror at the back on teh right, a sprayer tank in front of the mirror, a trash barrel with some trash on the right, and a pile of trash on the floor. Grape vines hanging from the roof and mugwort reeds sprouting from the ground partially blow the view.

The storage trailer on April 25, 2025 is cleaned out. Rotting wood in the floor is seen in a few spots. Not visible are the assorted holes in the aluminum roof and sides, and cracks in the roll-up door. The wooden side panels were mostly removed in preparation for dismantling the storage trailer.

List of Dumped Items off West Shepard Ave.

This is the list of items found in the woods off West Shepard Avenue. 

The first section totals the volume of household trash that has been removed from the property. The list grouped by location where it might have been once used also has been removed from the property. Most of these items has been removed. The furnace and refrigerator are still in the ground and will likely remain there until after the freeze in late fall 2025. The most notable item that remains as of May 4, 2025 is the pile of pressure-treated lumber.

29 buckets of trash (5 gallon size)

62 shopping bags of trash (the vinyl type use for grocery shopping

7 forty-gallon trash bags

Trunk load of wood from the pile

Most of the wood from inside the storage trailer

 

 

Household

Metal light fixtures (3) with four-foot fluorescent tubes (12)

Double hung window

Screen door

Furnace

Amanda refrigerator

Frigidaire gas range (stove and oven)

Cast iron porcelain double sink

Water cooler

Rolled sheet of vinyl flooring: 9-foot by 5-foot

Carpet, 20 feet long by 1 foot wide, and another piece 16 feet long by 4 feet wide

Artificial Christmas tree with lights

Folding couch

Panasonic tabletop radio

Window box fan

Steel fireplace screen

Mirror: 3 foot by 3 foot

Large black plastic tub

Large gray plastic tub

Blue plastic tub with handles

Picnic cooler large

Picnic cooler small

Jacket

Soup pot

Remote controls for electronic devices (3)

Plastic fuel pellet bags, about 40

Yard

32 gallon trash cans: green, black, and blue (2)

5-gallon buckets (12)

Metal lawn chairs (2) and the frame to the table

Plastic lawn chairs (part) (2)

Garden hose: 15 feet

Metal wheelbarrow

Blue child’s pool

7 five-foot high green stakes

Metal arbor poles with steel wire mesh

Orange mesh plastic snow fencing, 4 ft. by 10 ft.

Green steel mesh fencing, 4 ft. by 10 ft.

Plastic snow shovel

Digging shovel head: cracked

Electric motor

Slab of blue foam

Plastic plant trays (80)

Plastic one-gallon plant containers (30)

White plastic animal trap

Herbicide sprayers (2)

Tools

Six-foot long saw extender pole (2)

20 foot long aluminum ladder

Yellow plastic chainsaw case

PVC pipes (5)

Plastic 5-gallon tank for storing liquids

Automotive

Metal trailer

Pickup truck tires (4)

Side plastic panel to a pickup truck bed

Muffler

Chrome pipe

Metal one-gallon gas can

Plastic two-quart gas can (2)

Plastic gas can, one -gallon plus two quart

Traffic cones (2)

Dumped Items

Pressure treated lumber

Pieces of sheet metal (7)

Metal from barrel

Plastic tarp: clear

Plastic tarp: white

Metal fence pipes, 2 inch diameter (10)

Windows, double pane, 2 feet by 4 feet (2)

Storm windows (2), 2 feet by 2 feet

Three car tires, three rusty folding chairs, and this real estate sign were removed from the woods off West Shepard Avenue in May 2014. These items were not found in the areas otherwise described on these pages.