She let out a little "woo hoo" when she turned the corner and spotted the weathered child's plastic slide and a warped wood door near the curb.

Just a couple weeks ago the home's residents had junk strewn across their yard, but now they've set it out for trash pickup. Cross the address off the list.

Ruby Baker is on a mission. As president of the Bordeaux Hills Residents Association, she has organized a neighborhood beautification project to fix run-down and neglected properties.

Her work has taken on more urgency recently as property complaints across Nashville are surging. The Metro Codes Department has logged 60 percent more complaints per day in 2017 compared to 2015, according to a Tennessean analysis of Metro data. Some neighborhoods have seen a steeper spike. From additional inspectors roaming the streets, to new residents who don't tolerate old neighborhood norms, the reasons for the surge vary.

Baker and other volunteers want to head off any property violations before they escalate to court, where homeowners can be slapped with fines and jail time. Using community grant funds from the refuse company Waste Management, the group will select neighborhood residents and help them clean up their properties and make structural repairs.

“We started getting a lot of complaints or seeing a lot of homes in the neighborhood that looked, from the exterior, like they were being neglected,” Baker said. "Rather than quickly turning that over to Metro Codes, we turned it into community projects.”

In some neighborhoods growth fuels clashes between old and new residents

Nashville's residential growth and proliferation of short-term rentals in recent years has spurred more complaints, said Bill Penn, assistant director of the Codes Department property standards division. While short-term rental complaints have been widely publicized, the growing pain clashes are less obvious. Some new residents and outside investors, Penn said, have pressured existing residents through Metro officials.

"They’ve made a $200,000 to $300,000 investment and they want the surrounding properties to do the same,” Penn said. "They keep calling in on these folks to either motivate them to upgrade these properties or to sell them to someone who will."

More:Complaints shed new light on Nashville's short-term rental fight

The complaints can add tension to neighborhoods already beset by gentrification and concerns of displacing lower income residents. In Metro Councilman Scott Davis's East Nashville district, which has some of the fastest-climbing property values in Nashville, the rate of property complaints has shot up by 126 percent since 2015 -- the third-fastest in the city, next to the area surrounding Nashville International Airport and the Inglewood-Madison area.

Construction debris may be driving some of the complaints, Davis said, as older homes are knocked down for new, larger residential properties and crews dump their messes. He also sees the clash between neighbors, and tries to intervene by connecting lower-income residents with nonprofits that can help with repairs, he said.

Once Metro gets involved and the repairs are eventually made, Davis said, complainers often realize that they may have overreacted. They'll think, "'Well next time, instead of calling, maybe I’m going to knock on the door and talk to my neighbor.'”

Baker and her group plan to leave hang-tags on the doors of all 721 homes in Bordeaux Hills, explaining what type of problems can trigger code violations: grass growing higher than a foot, roof shingles missing, rain gutters hanging loose, and a litany of other problems. She'll let residents know that on October 14 they'll be hosting a community work day. Some may qualify for structural repairs, especially older residents with fixed incomes, she said.

“It’s a very fresh approach to an old problem,” said Jim Hawk, executive director of the Neighborhoods Resource Center.

Education and increased enforcement also lead to more complaints

Some community leaders have been encouraging residents to complain more than others, Hawk said. In two of the areas with the fastest-growing complaints -- Southeast Nashville and Madison -- Council Members Karen Johnson and Nancy VanReece said they have blitzed their communities with communication encouraging residents to complain.

“We work really hard to make sure people know if they see some illegal dumping or litter to call right away,” said VanReece, who represents the Madison and Inglewood areas.

Madison is also one of the neighborhoods recently targeted for more code enforcement, Penn said. Countywide the department hired five new inspectors in the beginning of the year, bringing the total to 20, and split up some areas like Madison that were previously handled by one inspector. Also, the department systematically audited some communities, including the areas surrounding the airport. Inspectors canvas streets and log complaints for all visible violations.

Baker and her volunteers are basically cataloging their own neighborhood's blemishes.

"I think this a much better way to address these issues," said Andrene Owens, a 30-year Bordeaux Hills resident who spent Saturday morning driving with Baker. "It's encouraging people to do it, without having to go through an agency, and you're not being forced."

Reach Mike Reicher at 615-259-8228, at mreicher@tennessean.com, and on Twitter @mreicher.